Re: [Quickfix-developers] "Cannot pass a GCHandle across AppDomains"

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Sorry can't look at the code, but it might be an issue with Excel, that
Excel just drops messages in that case. We've seen that with other systems.
I know we had to some form of polling in the VBA to catch missed fill
reports with other bots. Not sure exactly where the messages were getting
dropped

If you got to that point then you got further than I did in connecting Excel
to Quickfix via .NET, not that it can't be done.

On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 2:55 PM, Gonçalves Jr., Marco Roberto <
Mar...@pa...> wrote:

>  Scott,
>
>
>
> in fact we built a single ActiveX project in .Net and we got it working,
> but we are facing a problem when user press F2 in Excel (edit mode). ActiveX
> seems to be sending messages to Excel but since it is in edit mode the
> callback is not raised, no exceptions are thrown and I am losing messages. I
> would like to have exceptions or any method to control the messages flow. I
> attached a small project (please rename it to “.zip”) and if you have any
> time to help us (I know that it is difficult) I would appreciate.
>
>
>
> Best Regards,
>
>
>
> Marco
>
>
>
> *From:* Scott Kathrein [mailto:sc...@la...]
> *Sent:* Friday, August 06, 2010 3:39 PM
> *To:* Diego Frata; Gonçalves Jr., Marco Roberto
> *Cc:* Quickfix Developers List
>
> *Subject:* Re: [Quickfix-developers] "Cannot pass a GCHandle across
> AppDomains"
>
>
>
> Basically, I gave up on doing the project in .NET. I'm not sure that you're
> working with Excel, as I am, but Excel is unmanaged code, Qucikfix is
> natively unmanaged code, and I just felt it was throwing too much trouble in
> the mix to have some .NET bridge in the middle. I eventually get it working
> with C++ only...
>
>
>
> You can get it to work in .NET by not using VSTO as they create a "shim"
> which creates appdomains. .NET may possibly handle the part where you have
> to callback into Excel asynchronously more smoothly, as that was horrible in
> C++.
>
> On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 1:16 PM, Diego Frata <die...@gm...> wrote:
>
> Scott,
>
>
>
> I believe you didn't received the email below. Marco has the same problem
> with AppDomains and Quickfix you had sometime ago. I'm trying to help him
> figure out, but we're having a hard time. Can you help us with any sample
> code from your solution, so we could see how you managed to get it working?
>
>
>
> Thank you in advance.
>
>
> Diego Frata
> die...@gm...
>
>   ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: *goncalvm* <mar...@pa...>
> Date: Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 5:03 PM
> Subject: Re: [Quickfix-developers] "Cannot pass a GCHandle across
> AppDomains"
> To: qui...@li...
>
>    QuickFIX Documentation:
> http://www.quickfixengine.org/quickfix/doc/html/index.html
> QuickFIX Support: http://www.quickfixengine.org/services.html
>
>  Hi Scott,
>
> I am having the same problem as yours. I am creating a VSTO addin and
> appdomain problem came up. I don't know anything about c++. Do you have any
> sample or any article in c#?
> I tried to build an ActiveX instead and it worked well, but when I press F2
> (edit mode in Excel) I lost messages.
> Any help will be appreciated!
>
> Best regards,
>
> Marco
>
>
>
> Scott Kathrein wrote:
> >
> > QuickFIX Documentation:
> > http://www.quickfixengine.org/quickfix/doc/html/index.html
> > QuickFIX Support: http://www.quickfixengine.org/services.html
> >
> >
> > Well, I don't, I think.
> >
> > Visual studio was creating the AppDomains for me because I was creating a
> > Visual Studio Tools for Office project in visual studio 2008. (I believe
> > it
> > was creating a "shim"). I've reconfigured my project to create a plain
> old
> > class library, which I then register the same way with regasm, and this
> > works, presumably because there is no AppDomain creation.
> >
> > I was a little worried I wouldn't have much control over when Excel
> > creates
> > AppDomains and the like... but it seems to be working now.
> >
> > If this is a known issue, maybe it would make sense to post a warning
> > somewhere about the .NET wrapper? I've seen a couple people (1 of them
> > using
> > quickfix) have this problem when using NUnit, as it creates AppDomains
> and
> > apparently VSTO does so too.
> >
> > I wasn't sure at first exactly *how* I was passing a GCHandle across
> > appdomains. I mean, all of quickfix should be in the same appdomain,
> > right?
> > But the page I linked above seems to explain it pretty well. Apparently
> > unmanaged code doesn't *have* an appdomain, and so when it calls into
> > managed code, the compiler just *picks* a random one, namely the "first"
> > one, which in this case might have been the default Excel appdomain.
> >
> > The problem then is not caused by wanting to pass a handle between
> > appdomains, but rather by the simple *existance* of more than one
> > appdomain,
> > which consequently causes the compiler to bork and say "meh, this code's
> > not
> > managed, we'll just choose any old appdomain we feel like to handle this
> > callback!"
> >
> > The solution, is to use delegates, so the compiler knows which appdomain
> > to
> > use when unmanaged code goes into managed code.
> >
> > Losing the ability to use multiple appdomains has it's cost, most of
> which
> > I'm clueless about, not really being an expert on all this stuff.
> >
> > So that seems to be the long and short of it! Instead of posting a
> warning
> > about your wrapper, maybe microsoft should post a warning whenever you
> try
> > to use their compiler! (Or at least when unmanaged code calls back into
> > managed code.)
> >
> > Scott
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 7:21 PM, Diego Frata <die...@gm...>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Scott,
> >>
> >> Why do you need to pass a GCHandle across AppDomains?
> >>
> >> Diego Frata
> >> die...@gm...
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 1:59 PM, Scott Kathrein <
> >> sc...@la...> wrote:
> >>
> >>> QuickFIX Documentation:
> >>> http://www.quickfixengine.org/quickfix/doc/html/index.html
> >>> QuickFIX Support: http://www.quickfixengine.org/services.html
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> So here's the issue: I'm trying to create a COM object for use in
> Excel,
> >>> and I'm using the quickfix .NET wrapper API from version 1.13.3. I'm
> >>> compiling the quickfix library from source, but I have not made any
> >>> changes
> >>> to it.
> >>>
> >>> Most the time everything works fine, but when I do an
> >>> "initiator.start()",
> >>> at some point subsequently the Log class gets invoked to send out
> >>> "Connecting to x on port x", and I receive a "Cannot pass a GCHandle
> >>> across
> >>> AppDomains" exception that occurs when the onEvent method of the Log
> >>> class
> >>> is (attempted to be) accessed.
> >>>
> >>> If this is what it looks like, then the solution is very complicated
> and
> >>> uses delegates, and possibly a total rewrite of the .NET wrapper:
> >>> http://lambert.geek.nz/2007/05/29/unmanaged-appdomain-callback/
> >>>
> >>> This appears to be a long standing problem with Quickfix. I've found a
> >>> number of people receiving this exception.
> >>> For example, here:
> >>> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.finance.quickfix.user/1362 (2009,
> >>> has
> >>> workaround)
> >>> or here:
> http://osdir.com/ml/finance.quickfix.user/2006-10/msg00019.html
> >>> (from
> >>> 2006, says he contacted another user wit the same problem who had to
> >>> develop
> >>> his own fix implementation)
> >>>
> >>> Right now I can't directly search the mailing list (any search I do
> >>> returns no results), so I guess my questions are this:
> >>>
> >>> Is this still a known problem with Quickfix and appdomains? Is the only
> >>> real workaround to ensure that all of quickfix runs in one appdomain?
> >>>
> >>> If so, I'll have to look into doing that, or considering whether this
> >>> project should be abandoned. It's not clear to me if it's possible to
> >>> always
> >>> ensure something is running in one appdomain, and I'd rather not invest
> >>> a
> >>> lot of time into this and have it run buggy.
> >>>
> >>> Scott
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
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> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
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> >
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> Sent from the QuickFIX - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
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