Horrible bug in VS.net 2003 - please confirm

[Michael Bray]

Please, someone verify that this isn't just my system with this error...
The problem is that VS.net can't properly store large 'long' values for
control properties.. I'm guessing the threshold is actually if they are
larger than an int.MaxValue.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create a Windows Control Library project
2. Create a new control
3. Add a 'protected long' member
4. Add a 'public long' get/set accessor for the member (make the get
return the value, and the set assign the value to the member)
5. Create a Windows Forms project (then build the solution)
6. Add the control to the form
7. Set the property on the control to a large long value
8. Run (ok everything works fine)
9. When you view the properties of the control, the value isn't preserved
properly.

The large long value I use is 632890064081923 187. This is actually the
DateTime.UtcNow .Ticks value for my system. Although I am writing the
control to be used with DateTime's, I also want to be able to use it for
any long value, not just DateTimes. I say this because I have a feeling
that this problem doesn't manifest itself if I use DateTimes.

You can kind of see what might be happening in the InitializeCompo nent
class of the windows form... on my system it generates the code:

this.control1.L ongValue = ((long)(6328900 64081923187));

Now I'm not 100% sure, but it seems to me that the numeric value might be
being interpreted as an int before it gets cast to a long.

FYI I haven't tried this with VS 2005, but it doesn't matter because I need
to use VS 2003.

Can anyone confirm that this isn't just my system? Does anyone know of a
fix for this?

Thanks!

-mdb

[Thomas T. Veldhouse]

Michael Bray <mbray@makedint odot_ctiusadcom wrote:

>
this.control1.L ongValue = ((long)(6328900 64081923187));

What about:

this.control1.L ongValue = 632890064081923 187L;
--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

[Michael Bray]

Trivial and ineffective. I don't want to have to set this in my
constructor or something... and making this change in the
InitializeCompo nent will only be overwritten when I make any changes.
Maybe even when I recompile. Remember the code I'm talking about is the
auto-generated code made by VS.net.

-mdb

"Thomas T. Veldhouse" <ve*****@yahoo. comwrote in
news:rJ******** *************** *******@giganew s.com:

Michael Bray <mbray@makedint odot_ctiusadcom wrote:

>>
this.control1. LongValue = ((long)(6328900 64081923187));

What about:

this.control1.L ongValue = 632890064081923 187L;

[Thomas T. Veldhouse]

Michael Bray <mbray@makedint odot_ctiusadcom wrote:

Trivial and ineffective. I don't want to have to set this in my
constructor or something... and making this change in the
InitializeCompo nent will only be overwritten when I make any changes.
Maybe even when I recompile. Remember the code I'm talking about is the
auto-generated code made by VS.net.

What? I am indicating your syntax was wrong:

use:

this.control1.L ongValue = 632890064081923 187L;

instead of:

this.control1.L ongValue = ((long)(6328900 64081923187));

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

[Thomas T. Veldhouse]

Michael Bray <mbray@makedint odot_ctiusadcom wrote:

Trivial and ineffective. I don't want to have to set this in my
constructor or something... and making this change in the
InitializeCompo nent will only be overwritten when I make any changes.
Maybe even when I recompile. Remember the code I'm talking about is the
auto-generated code made by VS.net.

Ignore my last post, I didn't realize your long value is actually your system
clock ticks.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

[Michael Bray]

I'll ignore it, but not because it's system clock ticks. I'll ignore it
because I didn't write that code - it is auto-generated by VS.net. :)

-mdb

"Thomas T. Veldhouse" <ve*****@yahoo. comwrote in
news:L6******** *************** *******@giganew s.com:

Michael Bray <mbray@makedint odot_ctiusadcom wrote:

>Trivial and ineffective. I don't want to have to set this in my
constructor or something... and making this change in the
InitializeComp onent will only be overwritten when I make any changes.
Maybe even when I recompile. Remember the code I'm talking about is
the auto-generated code made by VS.net.

Ignore my last post, I didn't realize your long value is actually your
system clock ticks.

[Bruce Wood]

Michael Bray wrote:

Please, someone verify that this isn't just my system with this error...
The problem is that VS.net can't properly store large 'long' values for
control properties.. I'm guessing the threshold is actually if they are
larger than an int.MaxValue.

<snip>

You can kind of see what might be happening in the InitializeCompo nent
class of the windows form... on my system it generates the code:

this.control1.L ongValue = ((long)(6328900 64081923187));

Now I'm not 100% sure, but it seems to me that the numeric value might be
being interpreted as an int before it gets cast to a long.

Always test before posting! <Evil grin>

I tried exactly what you suggested, and my VS2003 Designer generates
exactly the same code.

However, I also dropped a TextBox on my UserControl and had it display
the contents of the private field; the text box showed
632890064081923 187, exactly as it should have.

I'll leave it to someone who understands the dark interior workings of
C# to explain why the above code results in a long literal, not an int
literal. Nonetheless, it appears to cause no problems: everything works
out the way you would expect (expect at the macro level, that is).

[Thomas T. Veldhouse]

Michael Bray <mbray@makedint odot_ctiusadcom wrote:

I'll ignore it, but not because it's system clock ticks. I'll ignore it
because I didn't write that code - it is auto-generated by VS.net. :)

In which case I would report it and indicate its "horriblene ss" when you do
;-)

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

[Michael Bray]

"Bruce Wood" <br*******@cana da.comwrote in
news:11******** **************@ m79g2000cwm.goo glegroups.com:

Always test before posting! <Evil grin>

I tried exactly what you suggested, and my VS2003 Designer generates
exactly the same code.

However, I also dropped a TextBox on my UserControl and had it display
the contents of the private field; the text box showed
632890064081923 187, exactly as it should have.

I'll leave it to someone who understands the dark interior workings of
C# to explain why the above code results in a long literal, not an int
literal. Nonetheless, it appears to cause no problems: everything
works out the way you would expect (expect at the macro level, that
is).

Oh man I've been testing for hours... I see the problem every time. Let
me give more details...

On my usercontrol, I paint the value in the OnPaint. Sometimes, even
though the 'bad' value shows up in the designer where the control is on the
form, when I run the form it shows the correct value.

But then, if I change some things around in the control, such as the
location or size of the control, then the value sticks to the bad value and
that's what I see when I run the form.

The critical part for me is that after I've dropped the control on the
form, and then I run the program (and the control paints the correct
value), when I look at the value in the designer next, it has the 'bad'
value. Did you look at the designer value or just the value in the
textBox? Did you play with the control at all? I would guess that if you
play for a bit then it will show.

I'll even make a video of it happening and I can show you... I'll post code
even. I'll make another post when they are ready.

-mdb

[Michael Bray]

Michael Bray <mbray@makeDInt oDot_ctiusaDcom wrote in
news:Xn******** *************** *****@207.46.24 8.16:

I'll even make a video of it happening and I can show you... I'll post
code even. I'll make another post when they are ready.

OK... I made a screen-cap movie of what's happening. You can download the
movie (22MB) and the source code (a few K) with the following links:

http://users.ctinet.net/mbray/BadControlMovie.zip
http://users.ctinet.net/mbray/DumbTest.zip

Extract DumbTest.zip to a directory, and open the solution file in DumbTest
subFolder. Use the movie to see exactly what I am doing.

-mdb