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  3. I thought .NET was supposed to make things easier, if anything, than unmanaged code.

I thought .NET was supposed to make things easier, if anything, than unmanaged code.

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  • H honey the codewitch

    There's already a ton of B+ trees in C++ I was going for a managed code version that would run on any .NET capable platform. I have one that's in memory. I just need to make it diskable, but it's easier said than done.

    When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

    R Offline
    R Offline
    realJSOP
    wrote on last edited by
    #10

    You do know about the System.IO.MemoryMappedFiles namespace, right? MemoryMappedFile Class (System.IO.MemoryMappedFiles) | Microsoft Docs[^] If you have a C++ version of your app, you could run them side-by-side and compare performance.

    ".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
    -----
    You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
    -----
    When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013

    H 1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • R realJSOP

      You do know about the System.IO.MemoryMappedFiles namespace, right? MemoryMappedFile Class (System.IO.MemoryMappedFiles) | Microsoft Docs[^] If you have a C++ version of your app, you could run them side-by-side and compare performance.

      ".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
      -----
      You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
      -----
      When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013

      H Offline
      H Offline
      honey the codewitch
      wrote on last edited by
      #11

      Yes, though it was added to .NET after my initial attempt at using mem mapped files from C#. Besides all that is is a wrapper like the one i had written years ago. It doesn't change the basic problem which is: var foo = new int[1000000]; //backed by disk, paged automatically, in C/C++ it's mainly because you can't use pointers in C#, and even if you use unsafe, you cannot pin objects to specific addresses in memory

      When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

      R J O 3 Replies Last reply
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      • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

        What's the problem? Just do exactly that:

        int[] foo = new int[1000000];

        And it'll be allocated for you from the LOH. Heck, you can do this if you want to:

        int[] foo = new int[500000000];

        Provided the max index fits in 31 bits (and the whole item is less than 2GB) .NET will let you have it if it can.

        Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640 Never throw anything away, Griff Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay... AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!

        H Offline
        H Offline
        honey the codewitch
        wrote on last edited by
        #12

        i know that, but it's not efficient and doesn't solve the basic issue, which is persistent, rapidly searchable storage.

        When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

        R 1 Reply Last reply
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        • H honey the codewitch

          I know this is a very special case but still i ran headlong into it. The easiest way to implement a B+ tree on disk is using a memory mapped file. I think this is what SQL Server does, but don't quote me. However, the only way you can access memory mapped files in C# is through .NET interop which makes it useless. Because one of the points of a memory mapped file is that you can do memory allocations that are backed by disk. There's no way in hell .NET can give you that in its current incarnation, even if one were to write a custom host, because of the way a GC system works. What I'd like var foo = new int[1000000]; // backed by disk, paged automatically What I'd have to do. somepointer = VirtualAlloc(...) Write(somepointer, data) etc etc basically it works like file i/o which defeats essentially the whole purpose. =(

          When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

          C Offline
          C Offline
          CPallini
          wrote on last edited by
          #13

          Quote:

          because of the way a GC system works

          :-D :-D :-D[^].

          H 1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • C CPallini

            Quote:

            because of the way a GC system works

            :-D :-D :-D[^].

            H Offline
            H Offline
            honey the codewitch
            wrote on last edited by
            #14

            Oh boy, you've been paying attention GC is great for string management compared to a traditional heap. for mapping a b-tree or b+tree to disk using memory mapped files not so much. It would be cool if .NET had a mechanism whereby you could create uncollected heaps that you manually destroy, and could allocate objects to them somehow. Maybe by making an appdomain with an UN GC'd heap in it or something. I know you can suspend garbage collection but that's not really what i'd be after because that impacts all objects.

            When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

            1 Reply Last reply
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            • H honey the codewitch

              I know this is a very special case but still i ran headlong into it. The easiest way to implement a B+ tree on disk is using a memory mapped file. I think this is what SQL Server does, but don't quote me. However, the only way you can access memory mapped files in C# is through .NET interop which makes it useless. Because one of the points of a memory mapped file is that you can do memory allocations that are backed by disk. There's no way in hell .NET can give you that in its current incarnation, even if one were to write a custom host, because of the way a GC system works. What I'd like var foo = new int[1000000]; // backed by disk, paged automatically What I'd have to do. somepointer = VirtualAlloc(...) Write(somepointer, data) etc etc basically it works like file i/o which defeats essentially the whole purpose. =(

              When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

              Richard DeemingR Offline
              Richard DeemingR Offline
              Richard Deeming
              wrote on last edited by
              #15

              honey the codewitch wrote:

              the only way you can access memory mapped files in C# is through .NET interop

              Really? :-D Memory-Mapped Files | Microsoft Docs[^] MemoryMappedFile Class (System.IO.MemoryMappedFiles) | Microsoft Docs[^] (Added in .NET 4.0)


              "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

              "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined" - Homer

              R H 2 Replies Last reply
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              • Richard DeemingR Richard Deeming

                honey the codewitch wrote:

                the only way you can access memory mapped files in C# is through .NET interop

                Really? :-D Memory-Mapped Files | Microsoft Docs[^] MemoryMappedFile Class (System.IO.MemoryMappedFiles) | Microsoft Docs[^] (Added in .NET 4.0)


                "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

                R Offline
                R Offline
                realJSOP
                wrote on last edited by
                #16

                The MMF class is just a wrapper around the Interop code.

                ".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
                -----
                You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
                -----
                When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013

                Richard DeemingR 1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • R realJSOP

                  The MMF class is just a wrapper around the Interop code.

                  ".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
                  -----
                  You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
                  -----
                  When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013

                  Richard DeemingR Offline
                  Richard DeemingR Offline
                  Richard Deeming
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #17

                  As is quite a lot of the BCL. :)


                  "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

                  "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined" - Homer

                  1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • Richard DeemingR Richard Deeming

                    honey the codewitch wrote:

                    the only way you can access memory mapped files in C# is through .NET interop

                    Really? :-D Memory-Mapped Files | Microsoft Docs[^] MemoryMappedFile Class (System.IO.MemoryMappedFiles) | Microsoft Docs[^] (Added in .NET 4.0)


                    "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

                    H Offline
                    H Offline
                    honey the codewitch
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #18

                    yeah i forgot about it, but it doesn't change the same underlying issue, and isn't useful to me. It's the same thing as the wrapper i wrote a decade or more or so ago.

                    When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

                    1 Reply Last reply
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                    • T TheGreatAndPowerfulOz

                      C++/CLI

                      #SupportHeForShe Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun

                      D Offline
                      D Offline
                      Dewey
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #19

                      That Ezra Taft Benson, while true, is one of the dumbest remarks I've seen, and is used by some groups to put down government. The point of government is to take your money and do what's best for the people as a whole. You can argue that isn't what happens in some cases, but that misses the point. Government generally is the only entity that takes risks when the reward isn't obvious. That where just about all of our technology comes from because industry won't invest without the promise of fairly quick rewards.

                      H Richard Andrew x64R S 3 Replies Last reply
                      0
                      • D Dewey

                        That Ezra Taft Benson, while true, is one of the dumbest remarks I've seen, and is used by some groups to put down government. The point of government is to take your money and do what's best for the people as a whole. You can argue that isn't what happens in some cases, but that misses the point. Government generally is the only entity that takes risks when the reward isn't obvious. That where just about all of our technology comes from because industry won't invest without the promise of fairly quick rewards.

                        H Offline
                        H Offline
                        honey the codewitch
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #20

                        I could write pages on this but I fear aside from not being read, it would wax far too political for the lounge. I was anarchist for 26 years. I didn't so much leave it behind as I evolved, just so you have some idea of where I'm coming from. I've never particularly been a fan of states. That having been said, you're essentially right, with the following caveats: Governments are complex adaptive systems. In lay terms, they consist of so many people that they take on a life of their own. The actions of the whole are not necessarily reflective of its individual agents. The problem with this is such systems either grow or they wither and die. Stasis is rare. And they defend themselves against attempts to undermine them. Positive** prospects like limiting government do not limit government, they create defacto private government with state power and no accountability. ** i'm not using the term like "good" - i'm using it as in active vs. passive That gets dangerous and ugly when the continuation of the system is more important to the system than acting out the will of the people it's supposed to represent. And all of them fall down under the right or rather, wrong conditions. No system can perfectly contain the potential for revolt. So with those limitations in mind, I think it's a good idea to be wary of government, but I think most people regard it as necessary because anarchism doesn't scale. :)

                        When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • H honey the codewitch

                          I know this is a very special case but still i ran headlong into it. The easiest way to implement a B+ tree on disk is using a memory mapped file. I think this is what SQL Server does, but don't quote me. However, the only way you can access memory mapped files in C# is through .NET interop which makes it useless. Because one of the points of a memory mapped file is that you can do memory allocations that are backed by disk. There's no way in hell .NET can give you that in its current incarnation, even if one were to write a custom host, because of the way a GC system works. What I'd like var foo = new int[1000000]; // backed by disk, paged automatically What I'd have to do. somepointer = VirtualAlloc(...) Write(somepointer, data) etc etc basically it works like file i/o which defeats essentially the whole purpose. =(

                          When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

                          R Offline
                          R Offline
                          RedDk
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #21

                          Ok, This is the Lounge. THIS post here is purely programmer speak so ... take it to a forum. Pick one.

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • D Dewey

                            That Ezra Taft Benson, while true, is one of the dumbest remarks I've seen, and is used by some groups to put down government. The point of government is to take your money and do what's best for the people as a whole. You can argue that isn't what happens in some cases, but that misses the point. Government generally is the only entity that takes risks when the reward isn't obvious. That where just about all of our technology comes from because industry won't invest without the promise of fairly quick rewards.

                            Richard Andrew x64R Offline
                            Richard Andrew x64R Offline
                            Richard Andrew x64
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #22

                            Dewey wrote:

                            The point of government is to take your money and do what's best for the people as a whole.

                            That's certainly not the point of the U.S. Federal gov't. The constitution makes it very clear that the Federal gov't is supposed to protect the people from foreign enemies, and not do much else that gets in the way of individual freedom and liberty. Of course certain forces have corrupted this to great extent.

                            The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • H honey the codewitch

                              I know this is a very special case but still i ran headlong into it. The easiest way to implement a B+ tree on disk is using a memory mapped file. I think this is what SQL Server does, but don't quote me. However, the only way you can access memory mapped files in C# is through .NET interop which makes it useless. Because one of the points of a memory mapped file is that you can do memory allocations that are backed by disk. There's no way in hell .NET can give you that in its current incarnation, even if one were to write a custom host, because of the way a GC system works. What I'd like var foo = new int[1000000]; // backed by disk, paged automatically What I'd have to do. somepointer = VirtualAlloc(...) Write(somepointer, data) etc etc basically it works like file i/o which defeats essentially the whole purpose. =(

                              When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

                              R Offline
                              R Offline
                              RedDk
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #23

                              Ok, This is the Lounge. THIS post here is purely programmer speak so ... take it to a forum. Pick one.

                              H 1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • R RedDk

                                Ok, This is the Lounge. THIS post here is purely programmer speak so ... take it to a forum. Pick one.

                                H Offline
                                H Offline
                                honey the codewitch
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #24

                                my posts of this nature were already weighed in on by Chris. they've been ruled okay for the lounge, so if you don't like them skip them or block me.

                                When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

                                C 1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • H honey the codewitch

                                  i know that, but it's not efficient and doesn't solve the basic issue, which is persistent, rapidly searchable storage.

                                  When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

                                  R Offline
                                  R Offline
                                  Rajesh R Subramanian
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #25

                                  If you want something to be truly rapid, you'd perhaps need to look at a native programming language like C++. Yes, .NET is supposed to make things easier, but not necessarily faster executing.

                                  H 1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • R Rajesh R Subramanian

                                    If you want something to be truly rapid, you'd perhaps need to look at a native programming language like C++. Yes, .NET is supposed to make things easier, but not necessarily faster executing.

                                    H Offline
                                    H Offline
                                    honey the codewitch
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #26

                                    I'm not looking for something that's bit level optimized. I'm fine with looking at complexity as for example O(log N), and that's fine, without worrying about the .NET overhead on top of the base functionality. Nah, mem mapped files, if i could use them like they were intended but under .NET, would make my programming task easier. Not necessarily make the program faster.

                                    When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

                                    R 1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • H honey the codewitch

                                      I'm not looking for something that's bit level optimized. I'm fine with looking at complexity as for example O(log N), and that's fine, without worrying about the .NET overhead on top of the base functionality. Nah, mem mapped files, if i could use them like they were intended but under .NET, would make my programming task easier. Not necessarily make the program faster.

                                      When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

                                      R Offline
                                      R Offline
                                      Rajesh R Subramanian
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #27

                                      honey the codewitch wrote:

                                      I'm fine with looking at complexity as for example O(log N), and that's fine, without worrying about the .NET overhead on top of the base functionality.

                                      Doing a full u-turn, are we? This was your response to another person on this thread:

                                      honey the codewitch wrote:

                                      but it's not efficient and doesn't solve the basic issue, which is persistent, rapidly searchable storage.

                                      H 1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • H honey the codewitch

                                        Yes, though it was added to .NET after my initial attempt at using mem mapped files from C#. Besides all that is is a wrapper like the one i had written years ago. It doesn't change the basic problem which is: var foo = new int[1000000]; //backed by disk, paged automatically, in C/C++ it's mainly because you can't use pointers in C#, and even if you use unsafe, you cannot pin objects to specific addresses in memory

                                        When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

                                        R Offline
                                        R Offline
                                        Rajesh R Subramanian
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #28

                                        honey the codewitch wrote:

                                        it's mainly because you can't use pointers in C#, and even if you use unsafe, you cannot pin objects to specific addresses in memory

                                        Yes, and that's by design.

                                        H 1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • H honey the codewitch

                                          I know this is a very special case but still i ran headlong into it. The easiest way to implement a B+ tree on disk is using a memory mapped file. I think this is what SQL Server does, but don't quote me. However, the only way you can access memory mapped files in C# is through .NET interop which makes it useless. Because one of the points of a memory mapped file is that you can do memory allocations that are backed by disk. There's no way in hell .NET can give you that in its current incarnation, even if one were to write a custom host, because of the way a GC system works. What I'd like var foo = new int[1000000]; // backed by disk, paged automatically What I'd have to do. somepointer = VirtualAlloc(...) Write(somepointer, data) etc etc basically it works like file i/o which defeats essentially the whole purpose. =(

                                          When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

                                          M Offline
                                          M Offline
                                          Member 9167057
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #29

                                          Environments designated to making simple things simple tend to make complicated things more complicated. Or maybe not, in the case of .NET, there's the unsafe keyword which allows you to work on raw pointers. However, that indeed doesn't help much with disk stuff. See it this way, C# is the polar opposite of C here. In C, complex things and simple things work about the same way at the cost of simple things being ridiculously complicated. I remember a project of mine where I combined the strengths of two worlds, I did my low-level in C (technically C++, but I had raw pointers at work), exposed a C interface and did my business logic in C#. Such a mixed design is of course too easy to get wrong, but I think I've managed to make it make sense.

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