Any chance for pointers in VB?

[Crirus]

Have anyone ideea if there are plans to implement pointers in VB?

Or, have the classes substituting the pointers the same performance?

Crirus

 

[Armin Zingler]

Have anyone ideea if there are plans to implement pointers in VB?

Or, have the classes substituting the pointers the same
performance?

All varaibles declared as a reference type are pointers.

 

[Nice Chap]

A reference 'is a' pointer. It points to an object. You can also treat value
types as objects i.e. obtain a reference to it, by 'Boxing' them.

 

[Crirus]

I know, byt a pointer to memory was what I want to know, as in C#

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

Have anyone ideea if there are plans to implement pointers in VB?

Or, have the classes substituting the pointers the same performance?

Mhm... I never needed pointers like in C and I never missed them. I
think/hope they will never introduce them to VB.NET.

 

[Armin Zingler]

I know, byt a pointer to memory was what I want to know, as in C#

The methods of System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal might help.

 

[Fergus Cooney]

Hi Crirus,

No pointers in VB. :-(

It's unlikely that there will be any as VB has not traditionally been a
pointer-based language. The best bet is to learn C# (or C++) and do it in a
separate Project.

The performance benefits can be considerable and for the graphics work
that you are doping, it is well worth investigating.

Here are some very useful articles for you

Multimedia and GDI+:
http://www.codeproject.com/cs/media
Look for Image Processing for Dummies which is a series of
walkthroughs on doing image manipulation using C# pointers.

Pointers UNDOCUMENTED - .NET
http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/pointers.asp
Which gives additional background on pointers in .NET.

Unfortunately the codeproject site was unavailable when I checked just
now. If you're in a hurry, you can do a Google search and check out the cached
pages (but the images come from the site so will not be shown).

Regards,
Fergus

 

[Fergus Cooney]

Hi Herfried,

It does depend on what you are doing in your programs, of course.
Run-of-the-mill Windows apps don't need pointers. Crirus' bitmap
manipulations? I think there's a good case there.

Regards,
Fergus

 

[Crirus]

There is any performance drawback on this class versus pinters that C# have?

 

[Crirus]

LOL, I guess I'm well known allready with my struggle with images

 

[Fergus Cooney]

Hi Crirus,

|| LOL, I guess I'm well known allready
|| with my struggle with images

Lol, yes, I'm certainly aware. I'm no expert in that field but I'm
following it all with great interest. ;-)

Regards,
Fergus

 

[Crirus]

I'm getting close ... but still missing few things

 

[Crirus]

No one on Drawing newsgroup had an answer if there is a BitBlt-like method
or a workaround it in GDI+...using a mask for transparence layer.... without
direct memory access and lock

 

[james]

I'm not certain, but, I don't think there is a method in GDI+ to do this.
That is probably why you have not gotten an answer to your question there.
(yep, I'm following this too as I am working on some
Photoshop-like stuff)
james

 

[Dmitriy Lapshin [C# / .NET MVP]]

Hi,

The ImageList class can blit bitmaps with transparency with its Draw method.

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

It does depend on what you are doing in your programs, of course.
Run-of-the-mill Windows apps don't need pointers. Crirus' bitmap
manipulations? I think there's a good case there.

Computers are getting faster and faster...

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

There is any performance drawback on this class versus pinters that C# have?

Why not put the unsafe code into a C# library and use this library with
your VB.NET application?

 

[Fergus Cooney]

Hi Herfried,

Yep, and bitmaps are getting bigger and bigger ... ;-)

Regards,
Fergus

** (higher resolution for more zoom - Crirus <is> talking maps here, after
all)

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

Yep, and bitmaps are getting bigger and bigger ... ;-)

Are you sure, screen resolution and size will get bigger and bigger?

;-)

 

[Fergus Cooney]

Hi Herfried,

I look forward to the table-top screen/graphics tablet - 100cm x 100cm,
120dpi. That's 90MB just for the desktop background image!! ;-))

Regards,
Fergus