VBA Rubberducking

Mathieu Guindon

4:00 PM

great, wiki doesn't render them

this

would GH page?

Mathieu Guindon

no idea

Comintern

Is that specific to commit?

I.e., does it break if the code changes?

Mathieu Guindon

@Comintern think so

Comintern

Nice

Mathieu Guindon

4:01 PM

/blob/{hash}/ in the url gives it away

Hosch250

Have you ever heard the tale of Darth Plagues the Wise? Suffice to say, it happens often and can be pretty fun to watch. The Star Wars reference was taken from the talk that flipped a character from good to evil and was the most loved film of that trilogy. This mostly had the force of the fact that the hero was a popular villain in the original trilogy. Star Trek DS9 had a fun story where the hero not only joined the Bond villain, but destroyed the world for him, much to the Villain's shock and audience laughs. — hszmv 2 hours ago

LOL

Duga

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] retailcoder created wiki page Version bump

Mathieu Guindon

4:20 PM

@Duga anyone wants to add anything (ping @Vogel612), feel free to go ahead!

(did I get this [mostly] right?)

Vogel612

LGTM

Mathieu Guindon

:+1:

Vogel612

hang on ... it might've missed the one you also missed in your PR

AssemblyVersion on Line 28 of Base.csproj is missing

Mathieu Guindon

gah, thanks

Duga

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] retailcoder edited wiki page Version bump

KySoto

4:29 PM

are any of you guys familiar with user alias' in sql server?

Mathieu Guindon

user alias?

KySoto

yeah. its an old thing from the sql server 2000 days

"Credentials"?

sorta kinda

not quite

4:31 PM

so i had to use exec sp_helplogins to actually SEE them

because in SSMS they dont show up

they have a "\" at the beginning of hte username

and i cant reference any users that have a "\" at the start

im attempting to figure out the permissions assigned so i can delete the alias' and make regular users

Mathieu Guindon

[\name]?

KySoto

\DSEGURA#

is an example

Mathieu Guindon

yeah try quoting them with square brackets

stab in the dark though, I've no idea - never seen those

Hosch250

@KySoto Try: domain\DSEGURA#

KySoto

its not a windows login

its a sql one

but mat's stab in the dark seems to have worked

Hosch250

4:35 PM

I know, but they might've used the same idea at some point.

Oh, OK.

KySoto

but, it failed because it doesnt exist or i dont have permission

despite being the SA

Hosch250

Probably doesn't exist.

KySoto

-_- and i know it exists since it shows up in sp_helplogins

Hosch250

I mean, it probably looked for a different one than what you intended.

Mathieu Guindon

@KySoto got an account on dba.se?

KySoto

4:36 PM

i specified hte database i KNOW it exists in

Hosch250

Like, it looked for "[/DSEGURA#]" instead of "/DSEGURA#".

KySoto

you cant uses quotes on alter user

Mathieu Guindon

ask on dba.se, they'll know

Hosch250

The quotes are just to show what's the data and what's the English :)

KySoto

it says expecting id or quoted id

oh, thats what a quoted id is... nice.

well. bleh, this is an annoying problem

Comintern

4:55 PM

Is the CW default binding transient?

this

no

singleton

that's why it's documented that it's better to specify the lifetime explicitly

Max wrote up about that in the wiki, in case you haven't seen it

Comintern

OK, good. Don't want to leak event handlers.

this

which one?

Comintern

I need the reference persistence provider to listen for IReferences events.

this

hmm, isn't that VbeEvents's responsibility to provide that?

Comintern

5:01 PM

Yes, but I need it in the settings provider to do the file IO when I get an ItemAdded event.

this

ah, not the COM's side.

Comintern

No, managed side. I already got it wired up in VbeEvents.

I also only want to handle each event once... :-)

Mathieu Guindon

5:51 PM

pop-quiz: how the heck does this ever happen?

That last screenshot does raise eyebrows and depict unexpected behavior - can you confirm that the locals toolwindow isn't showing the value when the tooltip is broken like this? I've deleted my now-irrelevant answer, this is a legit issue. (thanks for edit/clarifying) — Mathieu Guindon 5 mins ago

this

fwiw, there was a similar situation I posted about about tooltip showing Nothing for an uninitialized array

Mathieu Guindon

the day RD cracks the VBE debugger's shell...... boy the fun we're going to have

this

hmm. Someone downvoted the question.

upvoted since this is a legit question

Mathieu Guindon

the original post wasn't half as clear

this

ah ok

Mathieu Guindon

5:58 PM

got 10K+ on SO?

this

lol

try a measly 500 points

Mathieu Guindon

checks @this' profile... retracts question

this

yeah, not exactly a hotbed of SO activity I am.

unrelated: I got a Revival badge for my CR question. Yay?

Mathieu Guindon

Revival would be for an answer IIRC

oh, it's your selfie!

got +2 on an answer posted to a question asked 30+ days ago

this

yeah.

Mathieu Guindon

6:01 PM

get +5 and that's necromancer :)

this

didn't think that would be such an impossible question to answer.

Comintern

Huh. Did the breakpoint get inserted after the string was freed?

Mathieu Guindon

I doubt it

Comintern

The only other idea I have on that one is that the compiler optimized away the assignment.

Mathieu Guindon

lol that would be a first!

Comintern

6:03 PM

IKR?

Mathieu Guindon

wait VB6 does do that on compilation, right?

you might be onto something there

this

Yes, I wondered the same thing but that's to native machine code

Comintern

I think so. It's a setting IIR.

this

I don't think VBA compiles to that.... right?

Mathieu Guindon

it compiles to p-code AFAIK

does that mean it doesn't do any compiler optimizations?

this

6:05 PM

Right. In VB6, you had a choice of compiling to p-code or to native machine code.

Sorry that'd be a Wayne question.

Comintern

I keep getting told that VBA doesn't, but I'm not entirely certain.

Mathieu Guindon

"optimize for speed" or "optimize for ~~size~~ floppy disk install"

this

I'm sure there has to be some optimizations

Comintern

I can't imaging there wouldn't be - document size was a big thing when VBA was introduced.

Mathieu Guindon

p-code was "optimize for speed", wasn't it

this

6:07 PM

I thought that was a separate setting

e.g. you had 2 settings of whether to compile to native code or to p-code, then whether to optimize for size/speed?

Comintern

That has the ring of familiarity.

no, not exactly

eh, can't recall

ah

6:10 PM

so yes they were 2 separate settings but optimizations are only available w/ native code

Mathieu Guindon

"Favor Pentium Pro(tm)" lol

this

IKR?

Mathieu Guindon

"no, my code needs to run on a 386"

this

back in the days, hardware mattered a lot more.

Mathieu Guindon

This glitch is worrisome, RD devs are looking into what could possibly be the cause (we'll need to understand the ins & outs of it if we ever want to enhance the VBE debugger!). One hypothesis is that the assignment might have been optimized away in the p-code, but not in the interpreted source. — Mathieu Guindon 59 secs ago

this

6:11 PM

remember how big deal MMX was?

Mathieu Guindon

that and "MMX-ready", yeah

and 4x CD-R drives

Comintern

"Advanced Optimizations"?

Not sure I'm buying that one.

this

@MathieuGuindon yet so impractical

@Comintern read: unsafe

Turn off the bound checking! We don't need no steenkin' bound checking! Giddy-yap! Full speed ahead!

Mathieu Guindon

I always read that as an alternate label for the obiquitous "Advanced" button

Comintern

I was thinking more along the lines of "Use i387 math coprocessor (experimental)".

Hosch250

6:15 PM

@this Damn the torpedos!

Mathieu Guindon

I wonder where VBA puts its .pdb "symbolic debug info" data

this

Did VB6 even use a .pdb?

Comintern

Isn't that part of the pcode?

Mathieu Guindon

IDK

"Create symbolic debug info" rings that bell though

this

i'm just not sure if that actually is in same format as today's .pdb file is

Comintern

6:17 PM

Did VS6 support attaching a debugger to a running process?

hmm

uh.... IDK.

I don't think so

I was still picking my nose back then.

Comintern

I should ask over on Retro Computing SE... :-P

Mathieu Guindon

6:18 PM

^

Comintern

OK, so WTH am I getting an invalid cast on icpc.FindConnectionPoint(ref g, out _icp);?

FreeMan

wait, isn't that screenshot from VB6, while the question is about VBA? Similar but different ducks...

this

what interface are you using?

Mathieu Guindon

that's... a nice signature you got here

this

You can blame me for that siggy, I think.

Comintern

6:20 PM

Is there not an IConnectionPointContainer for VBA.References? It's apparently trying to return something.

this

wait, you created a SafeEventedComWrapper around the reference source interface, right?

Mathieu Guindon

there is one... wait isn't that already done somewhere?

the parser is already kicking in when you add/remove refs

this

I don't think it was ever implemented but my memory is... a filthy liar.

Mathieu Guindon

something is already listening to these events

Comintern

I'm getting a Microsoft.Vbe.Interop._dispReferencesEvents for the type parameter.

Mathieu Guindon

6:21 PM

makes sense

this

Vbe.Interop => VBA, right, not VB6?

Comintern

Oh, yeah - it was mostly wired up - I just made the call to AttachEvents.

@this Yes - that's determined by the SCW set in use.

this

Ok. The current code shows this: public interface IReferences : ISafeComWrapper, IComCollection<IReference>, IEquatable<IReferences>

Mathieu Guindon

isn't this already working? github.com/rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck/blob/…

Comintern

It already inherits from the evented wrapper - I just corrected the interface.

this

6:24 PM

Thought so, ok

I wonder if there's another interface without the underscore?

Comintern

I'm getting this GUID at the call site: {0002e118-0000-0000-c000-000000000046}. Wonder if that's correct.

this

e.g. should be dispReferencesEvents, not _dispReferencesEvent have to check the OleView for that.

I remember running into something similar because they dumbly had multiple interfaces with similar name for... reasons.

Comintern

That interop is still a dependency, is it?

this

shoudl be yeah

Comintern

I could just pop that open and find the GUID.

this

6:28 PM

:+1:

puzzlepiece87

Does anyone have any quick takes on how much they like or don't like Google Apps Script?

Mathieu Guindon

aka javascript

'nuf said :)

puzzlepiece87

Oops never mind then.

Hosch250

Did you really need to ask that? You should know my opinion on JS by now.

Mathieu Guindon

lol

wth are these getting wired-up anywhere?

puzzlepiece87

6:30 PM

@Hosch250 Sorry, unintentional troll there!

Comintern

@MathieuGuindon They weren't before, I need them though.

this

@MathieuGuindon Doesn't mean anything if they aren't dispatched via the VbeEvents

puzzlepiece87

Though I'm happy because Javascript is routinely popular in the SO Dev survey per my memory.

Mathieu Guindon

they're harmful then

this

when I implemented that class, I set it up so that all COM events funnel through the VbeEvents.

Comintern

6:30 PM

I still think it's funny that error manifests itself as a VBE messagebox.

this

Read: a main shutoff valve

kk

bwahaha

that's... interesting.

Comintern

6:31 PM

IKR?

Mathieu Guindon

that's how deep RD is into the VBE's guts - we get the VBE to think it's the source of our bugs :)

this

Pretty sure I didn't get that when I was working that out

Comintern

It's calling QueryInterface internally.

When it doesn't get it, the COM object throws on the cast.

this

of course it has to.

Comintern

It's just throwing into VBE-space and not RD-space.

this

6:33 PM

it's strange though because my memory (again, a stinking liar) is that I did get a proper VS error.

but that might been me with debugger attached or something, IDR.

Comintern

I only get it in VBE if the VS debugger isn't attached.

Prolly why then

#CrossingTheStreams

^

Let's put Zuul back here he belongs.

FreeMan

6:34 PM

@MathieuGuindon not sure if good or bad...

Mathieu Guindon

it's in the same vein as "Excel has stopped working...", just less critical

apparently the VBE does have error handling in some places

what's funny is that it uses its "run-time error" msgbox for it

> Run-time? But I'm not running any VBA!

FreeMan

SCP Issue: Type Private Function IsReportRequested(| get Private Function IsReportRequested((). Happens pretty consistently. Delete the ((), type ( and get (|)

Yay!

Mathieu Guindon

ugh dammit

Hosch250

FYI, did I mention that all Manning MEAPs are half-off today?

Comintern

Hmmm... GUID is correct.

[
  uuid(0002E118-0000-0000-C000-000000000046),
  helpcontext(0x0001873e)
]
dispinterface _dispReferencesEvents {
    properties:
    methods:
        [id(0x00000001), helpcontext(0x0001873f)]
        void ItemAdded([in] Reference* Reference);
        [id(0x00000002), helpcontext(0x00018740)]
        void ItemRemoved([in] Reference* Reference);
};

Mathieu Guindon

6:39 PM

@Hosch250 someone checked the "Yes! Sign me up to receive weekly spam mail with offers and discounts!" checkbox

Hosch250

No, I check the daily offer every day.

And I've been doing the Countdown to 2019. I won a book in it yesterday.

this

@Comintern and the References coclass implements that as the source interface?

Hosch250

Every day in December, you answer a question. 2 people of everyone who got it right wins an ebook of their choice.

Duga

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] daFreeMan opened issue #4629: SCP inserting extra "(" in method signatures

> RD .4291

SCP is consistently inserting an extra `(` when defining a method signature:

Public Sub Foo(|

Yields

Public Sub Foo((|)

a single backspace from that cursor location removes the `()` leaving

Public Sub Foo(|

Which is where the vanilla VBE would have left me in the first place.

Hosch250

At the end, 1 person of everyone who got the most right get every 2019 MEAP.

Comintern

6:41 PM

@this Yep

Mathieu Guindon

@FreeMan I can repro, but there's also a way to make it not do that... somehow... unclear... lovely whack-a-mole feature.

Comintern

coclass References {
    [default] interface _References;
    [default, source] dispinterface _dispReferences_Events;

this

with 2nd _?

_dispReferences_Events?

Duga

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] retailcoder added label feature-autocomplete to issue #4629: SCP inserting extra "(" in method signatures

FreeMan

@Hosch250 @Hosch250

Duga

6:42 PM

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] retailcoder added label feature-self-closing-pairs to issue #4629: SCP inserting extra "(" in method signatures

FreeMan

4 hours ago, by FreeMan

flags @Hosch250's posts for spam

this

Not _dispReferencesEvents?

Duga

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] retailcoder added label bug to issue #4629: SCP inserting extra "(" in method signatures

Comintern

OHAI dispinterface _dispReferences_Events with the extra underscore.

Duga

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] retailcoder added label regression to issue #4629: SCP inserting extra "(" in method signatures

this

6:43 PM

Bingo

That's why

use that interface instead

17 mins ago, by this

I remember running into something similar because they dumbly had multiple interfaces with similar name for... reasons.

FreeMan

@MathieuGuindon happy to help :)

Hosch250

@FreeMan Cool. I want to make sure everyone who wants a good book can get it cheap!

Mathieu Guindon

I swear that feature will <power-Gandalf voice> BEND TO MY WILL

2

this

@Hosch250 think Manning can give Mat a free iron gauntlet?

FreeMan

@Hosch250 :D

Hosch250

6:45 PM

@this As far as I'm aware, they aren't in the iron-working business or in the clothing industry.

Mat's in the clothing industry, though, so...

FreeMan

Maybe if we ask real nice, they'll iron his guantlet...

Comintern

@this ...and the Interop doesn't expose that. Do you remember how you handled that before?

Mathieu Guindon

would dynamic help?

this

you're kidding.

Not sure we can use dynamic - we need the actual interface

VBE

@Comintern do they both have the same guid?

Mathieu Guindon

@this god no. VBE extensibility is a stupid useless pile of unreliable half-exposed goo as far as events are concerned.

Comintern

6:47 PM

Ummm... they can't?

this

in my case, the interface I actually needed was already exposed, so it wasn't.

Comintern

Unique

this

I'm still trying to work out why you got the GUID for a different interface in the first place

FreeMan

@MathieuGuindon read that as dynamite...

Comintern

@this That makes 2 of us.

Mathieu Guindon

6:48 PM

that might also help... in some ways.

Comintern

There's like 3 of them.

this

IKR?

i'm sure that was during some intern's bong time.

Mathieu Guindon

lol

FreeMan

"...49 ways of doing it right..." -somebody 'round here

Comintern

Event sinking into the bong water?

this

6:49 PM

anyway, if you don't have the interface, you'll have to import it.

Comintern

Well f*ck.

this

that shouldn't be hard

Comintern

This was supposed to be the easy part though.

this

just create an interface that's compatible, decorate it with the ComImport attribute and provide the same GUID of whatever that 2-underscore thingee is

i'm sure you even can copy'n'paste from the 1-underscore thingee

and just change the guid but the ComImport is important.

then add some colorful commentary about how interns at microsoft are hitting the bong a bit too hard back in '98.

Comintern

Oh, I have plenty of colorful commentary.

this

6:52 PM

remember a certain black duck thinks we need more comment. Might as well provide some entertainment.

Hosch250

I've heard some things about black sheep that makes me think that if black ducks are any relative, we may not want them hanging around our project.

this

nah, referring to the company named BlackDuck -- the one that's hosting the openhub project

Hosch250

I know :P

Comintern

:facepalm:

this

Don't mind me. I'm Captain Obvious, you know.

Comintern

6:55 PM

Running the build clean fixed it.

this

wut?

Comintern

Your guess is as good as mine.

this

so it works with the one-underscore interface?

Comintern

No, it picks up the hidden 2 underscore interface.

this

oh not too bad

at least it's making sense in its own insane way.

Duga

6:58 PM

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] comintern synchronized pull request #4601: All your refs are belong to Duck

Mathieu Guindon

@Comintern interns are still hitting the bong?

Comintern

lol

Duga

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] comintern edited pull request #4601: All your refs are belong to Duck

this

Not sure. They may have moved on to something beyond the bong.

FreeMan

@this thanks, Cap'n Obvious, I'm Cap'n Oblivious. (#TIL)

Comintern

6:59 PM

OK, down to 2 items:

Insert the command in more locations (i.e. RD context menus, RD add-in menu, etc.).
Add custom icons for projects?

Transcript for