Monthly Archives: April 2017

How does the expression, “*pointer++” evaluate?

 in C / C++  tagged C/C++ / increment / pointer / pointers by

*pointer++ will increment the position of the pointer first but it will return the value that was pointed before the position of the pointer changed.

*pointer++ is equivalent to *(pointer++). This happens because the postfix ++ and -- operators have higher precedence than the indirection (dereference).
You can read more about the precedence order at this very helpful article at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operators_in_C_and_C%2B%2B#Operator_precedence

To increment the value pointed to by pointer, use (*pointer)++.

To increment the position of the pointer and return the value that is pointed after the position of the pointer changed use *++pointer.

Examples

The following example will increment the position of the pointer but return the value that was originally pointed.
By the end of the following block, pointer will point to position 1 and the value variable will have the value 11.


const unsigned int values[] = {11, 12, 14, 18};
const unsigned int *pointer = values;
const unsigned int value = *pointer++;

The following example will increment the position of the pointer and return the value that the new position is pointing to.
By the end of the following block, pointer will point to position 1 and the value variable will have the value 12.


const unsigned int values[] = {11, 12, 14, 18};
const unsigned int *pointer = values;
const unsigned int value = *++pointer;

How to Start/Stop or Enable/Disable firewalld on Fedora 25

 in GNU/Linux  tagged fedora / fedora 25 / firewall / firewalld / GNU/Linux by

firewalld (Dynamic Firewall Manager) tool provides a dynamically managed firewall. The tool enables network/firewall zones to define the trust level of network connections and/or interfaces. It has support both for IPv4 and IPv6 firewall settings. Also, it supports Ethernet bridges and allow you to separate between runtime and permanent configuration options. Finally, it supports an interface for services or applications to add firewall rules directly.

Disable firewalld

To disable firewalld, execute the following command as root or using sudo:

systemctl disable firewalld;

Enable firewalld

To enable firewalld, execute the following command as root or using sudo:

systemctl enable firewalld;

Stop firewalld

To stop (or deactivate) firewalld,execute the following command as root or using sudo:

systemctl stop firewalld;

Start firewalld

To start (or activate) firewalld, execute the following command as root or using sudo:

systemctl start firewalld;

Status of firewalld

To check the status of firewalld, execute the following command as root or using sudo:

systemctl status firewalld;

CONCEPTS

systemd provides a dependency system between various entities called “units” of 12 different types. Units encapsulate various objects that are relevant for system boot-up and maintenance. The majority of units are configured in unit configuration files, whose syntax and basic set of options is described in systemd.unit(5), however some are created automatically from other configuration, dynamically from system state or programmatically at runtime. Units may be “active” (meaning started, bound, plugged in, …, depending on the unit type, see below), or “inactive” (meaning stopped, unbound, unplugged, …), as well as in the process of being activated or deactivated, i.e. between the two states (these states are called “activating”, “deactivating”). A special “failed” state is available as well, which is very similar to “inactive” and is entered when the service failed in some way (process returned error code on exit, or crashed, or an operation timed out). If this state is entered, the cause will be logged, for later reference. Note that the various unit types may have a number of additional substates, which are mapped to the five generalized unit states described here.
— From man systemd

The above, in a nutshell:

  • enabled is a service that is configured to start when the system boots
  • disabled is a service that is configured to not start when the system boots
  • active is a service that is currently running
  • inactive is a service that is currently stopped and may be disabled, but it can be started and become active

C/C++: A small tip for freeing dynamic memory

 in C / C++  tagged free by

Taking into account the behavior of the free() function, it is a good practice to set your pointer to NULL right after you free it.

By doing so, you can rest assured that in case you accidentally call free() more than one times on the same variable (with no reallocation or reassignment in between), then no bad side-effects will happen (besides any logical issues that your code might be dealing with).

You can include free() from malloc.h and it will have the following signature extern void free(void *__ptr);.

Description of operation:

Free a block allocated by malloc, realloc or calloc.
The free() function frees the memory space pointed to by ptr, which must have been returned by a previous call to malloc(), calloc(), or realloc().  Otherwise, if free(ptr) has  already been called before, undefined behavior occurs.  If ptr is NULL, no operation is performed.

Working examples:


#include <stdio.h>
#include <malloc.h>

int main()
{
  printf("Hello, World!\n");

  void * c = malloc (sizeof(char) * 10);

  free(c);
  c = NULL;
  free(c);

  return 0;
}



#include <iostream>

int main()
{
  std::cout << "Hello, World!" << std::endl;

  void * c = malloc (sizeof(char) * 10);

  free(c);
  c = NULL;
  free(c);

  return 0;
}

Select range of lines in Notepad++ using line numbers 13

 in NotePad++  tagged NotePad++ by

In response to a question in this post we proposed the following method to select a range of lines in Notepad++ using the line numbers:

  1. Press Ctrl + G, type the start line and hit Enter to go to the start line.
  2. Then go to the menu, click on Edit and then Begin/End select.
  3. Press again Ctrl + G, and type the end line number and hit Enter to go to it.
  4. Back to the menu, click on Edit and then Begin/End select once more.
    By now you will have your range of lines selected.