Huckerts Page for Programmers

As a professional programmer I have concentrated on the following topics:

Graphics Programming: compression, basic algorithms
Document formats: parsers and generators for CCITT G3/G4, PDF, ASN/1, RTF
Programs to handle written natural language: hyphenation, spell checkers, dictionary maintenance, parsers for NL, automatic translation
Editors for text and programs
Functional programming in several assemblers, C, Pascal, COBOL, PL/I
OO technology in C++, C# and JAVA
C++ technology using the framework wxWidgets. I wrote my program HUMidi with wxWidgets and a lot of own C++ classes
XML technology (XML parsers SAX and DOM, JDOM, XSLT, XML schema etc.)
Scripting (makefiles, deployment scripts etc.) with ant
Communication problems including network programming and firmware for communication interface hardware
Articles and books on programming languages and text processing
System programming under UNIX and Windows
IT architecture consulting
Database design with Oracle, DB2, Mysql, Informix, PL/SQL
Music software. I sell a professional C++ source code library. For details see my HUMIdi page

You find here my professional profile in

French. The profile includes a list of all projects I was involved in.

Sample code and Articles

The sample code that you may download is generally portable between UNIX (including LINUX) and Windows. If an application runs only under a specific operating system than this is noted. Please look at the source code headers to see what compiling options you must set on the respective operating system.

PDF and Image Graphics:

An article (in PDF) that explains the essentials of PDF: pdfart.pdf.
Demo code that generates a PDF file: pdfg.cpp The test document generated by the sample program is here.
A sample program txtpdf.cpp that converts text files (some HTML like tags may be included) to PDF. The program also generates headers and footers and breaks the input text into pages. The code contains PDF classes written in C++
A command line program for Windows 32Bit called tiff2pdf that converts TIFF images into PDF files that may be viewed with Adobes Acrobat Reader. The program handles single files as well as complete directories containing TIFF images. I sold the source code for this program to several commercial clients - this is why you don't find the source code here. Ask me for the commercial conditions. Ask me also for UNIX versions. The program has been called "the fasted image to PDF converter on the market". The exe-file offered for download has no restrictions except that my copyright is inserted in the header line.

RTF:

A C++ class called HU_RTF that I wrote to generate RTF documents on-the-fly. RTF (stands for Rich Text Format) is the Microsoft exchange format for word processors. The class includes code for essential text formatting, for meta information, for frames, for tables and images. The generated RTF documents can be used with Microsoft WORD or other RTF capable word processors (Improved version 12-2005).

Sockets (TCP/IP):

Three C++ classes for TCP/IP access called CLIENT_SOCKET, SERVER_SOCKET and MSGSOCKET
two sample applications called tcpcl4 and tcpsrv4 implementing a simple file transfer (for a more serious file transfer see hu_ftp below). The server is a multithreaded server running both under Linux and Windows. Under Linux POSIX threads are used. Client and server use the classes mentioned above.
a simple URL fetch program (a loader for HTML Pages) called urlfetch that uses the above classes
make-files for the sample applications (for MS C++ with Windows)
a simple file transfer program called hu_ftp acting as both a server and a client. This is a command line application i.e. it has no graphical interface. The program uses my classes SRVSOCKET, MSGSOCKET and CLIENT_SOCKET in a newer version. I designed this very simple program as I was tired to be forced to install a (usually large) ftp server. In contrast to LINUX the normal WINDOWS versions don't have ftp daemons (they normally have a ftp client). You can use this program with a direct network cable between two computers (a "crossover cable") or in a larger network. The archive contains also a short user manual. Important note: the protocol is not identical with the one used in UNIX ftp.

Database and ODBC:

a C++ class called HU_ODBC for ODBC access to databases
a set of related auxiliary classes (among them a string class and a class implementing a double linked list - I avoid STL whenever possible)
a sample application called sql_odbc that accepts SQL statements from a file or from the command line and executes them
New HUCursorDemo: a sample application written in C#. This sample program (GUI plus business logic) demonstrates how large cursor sets can be handled in a program design that is slightly more complex than the usual "vanilla" cursor handling samples. Features parallel threads for visualisation and DB operation. Contains the complete C# source code and a PDF article (at the moment in German only) entitled "Handling large cursor sets in database clients with C#" (in German: "Bewältigung großer Treffermengen in Datenbankclients mit C#") explaining the basic architecture of this approach that has successfully been used with several million hit records.

A context free parser for natural languages

This is based on very old code that I wrote around the early 80s. The first C compiler I used then was Ron Cains "Small C" for 8080-based processors. The program is totally command-line oriented - no fancy graphics! Here is a description in PDF (by the way generated via the program txtpdf mentioned above). Features include:

exe file and source code (Standard ANSI C) contained. The main component hupars.c is very short (not more than 70KB code) and very fast.
Uses an external grammar. The notation for the rules ressembles Backus-Naur notation (or classical Chomsky normal form) enhanced by "complex notation" to cope for congruence phenomena usually found in many indo-european languages.
Can be used for many languages
Offers a simple morphological component (endings only). A more powerful morphological component will soon be presented here.
A medium size German grammar and two simpler sample grammars (English and French) are included.
I include some utility functions like a syntax checker (syncheck.c), a sort-and-merge program (HUWbsort.c) and a tokenizer for written texts (scanner.c).
The dictionary maintenance program presented below can be used to prepare the dictionaries

A dictionary maintenance program:

This may to be used in context with my old context free parser for natural languages (see above). It can probably used also in other contexts (linguistics):

pure Windows program dictmant.exe and dictmant.cpp (the source: uses pure Windows SDK, nor MFC nor any other class library)
a make file dictmant.mak for Microsoft C++, a definition file, a ressource file
surrounding files: an ini file, a sample dictionary (German)

Miscellaneous Applications:

a task scheduler: a command line application that allows the start of applications at specific times under Windows NT or Windows 95/98. The tasks to be started can be defined in an configuraton file. This is a simplified replacement for UNIX crontab. I wrote this application because I had problems with the at command under Windows NT.

serialcomm: a simple file transfer over serial lines for Windows 32 Bit: this can be used to transfer file from one computer to another. Note: the software is not prepared to use modems- a direct line must be between the two computers

Code Snippets:

I collect here small programs I wrote in order to get familiar with specific technical problems. These code snippets are normally very short - they concentrate on the essence of the problems. They may contain code that I found elsewhere on the internet. Note that my snippets do not answer all questions related with the given problem: if you look into the code you will see that very often open questions still exist!

Waitable timers: This program demonstrates the use of waitable timers in cooperation with callback routines. Context: Microsoft Windows 32/64 Bit, C++, system programming. This technique is used in my MIDI interpreter HUMidi.

Exception handling in Windows and Linux (in German, German title: "Ausnahmebehandlung in C++ , Windows und Linux", contains 4 larger sample programs): discusses the standard and non standard ways of exeption handling in C++. Tries to distinguish expected and non expected exceptions. Tries also to find an answer to the question: what to do with exceptions in code that you didn't write?

New Application singletons under Linux. How can I be sure to have only one running instance of an application? I was not very satisfied with the aproaches I found on the Internet and wrote therefor my own solution in C++. This simple approach uses the exclusive lock capability of the fcntl() call under Linux. The zip file includes a simple main() method illustrating the use of my class FILE_Mutex. Note that this works for processes - not threads nor other objects that should show singleton behaviour.

JAVA samples. Shows simple sample code for the most frequent application classes: IO, exceptions, string handling, GUI (Swing), collections, inheritance (derivation) and XML. I use this sample code if I have to write JAVA programs again after longer projects in C++ or PLSQL or other programming languages when I simply forgot the basic JAVA techniques.

Copyrights

I reserve the copyright for commercial use to me. Please don't use this code in commercial contexts.