I'm very much new to programming and have been doing fairly well so far. But progress bars still confuse me. The web unfortunately has to many differing examples for me to get anything out of them. Some say to use background worker some don't, etc. Below I have what I THINK should work but doesn't. Its just supposed to she a progress bar when copying file from one folder to another. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks.
private void btnCopyFiles_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string folder1 = #"c:\folder1\";
string folder2 = #"c:\folder2\";
DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(folder1);
FileInfo[] filelist = di.GetFiles("*.*");
int count = di.GetFiles("*.*").Length;
this.progressBar1 = new System.Windows.Forms.ProgressBar();
progressBar1.Maximum = count;
progressBar1.Minimum = 0;
progressBar1.Step = 1;
foreach (FileInfo file in filelist)
{
try
{
this.Cursor = Cursors.WaitCursor;
File.Copy(folder1 + #"\" + file.Name, folder2 + #"\" + file.Name, true);
progressBar1.PerformStep();
this.Cursor = Cursors.Default;
}
catch (Exception error)
{
MessageBox.Show("Error: " + error);
}
}
}
I'm assuming that you are using Visual Studio and have added the ProgressBar control by dragging it to the form. If this is correct, then following line, may be the problem:
this.progressBar1 = new System.Windows.Forms.ProgressBar();
By recreating the control, you are loosing its link to the form. Just remove or comment that line and try it again.
Overall the issue is that your code continues to execute not allowing the form to re-draw itself as it needs to. Your best, and fastest route is to use a BackgroundWorker to actually perform your operation, using its events to update the progress. Doing this, the update to the progress bar is done on the UI thread, and the UI updates, your file operations go on behind the scenes.
First, create a struct to hold arguments to the BackgroundWorker, which will be passed in DoWorkEventArgs.
public struct CopyStruct
{
public string sourceDir;
public string destDir;
}
Then, do something like this:
private void btnCopyFiles_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
InitializeBackgroundWorker();
CopyStruct copyStruct = new CopyStruct
{
sourceDir = #"C:\folder1\",
destDir = #"C:\folder2\"
};
backgroundWorker.RunWorkerAsync(copyStruct);
}
private void InitializeBackgroundWorker()
{
backgroundWorker.WorkerReportsProgress = true;
backgroundWorker.DoWork += backgroundWorker_DoWork;
backgroundWorker.RunWorkerCompleted += backgroundWorker_RunWorkerCompleted;
backgroundWorker.ProgressChanged += backgroundWorker_ProgressChanged;
}
private void backgroundWorker_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)
{
progressBar.Value = e.ProgressPercentage;
}
private void backgroundWorker_RunWorkerCompleted(object sender, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e)
{
// do something when finished
}
private void backgroundWorker_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
BackgroundWorker worker = (BackgroundWorker) sender;
CopyStruct copyStruct = (CopyStruct) e.Argument;
DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(copyStruct.sourceDir);
FileInfo[] filelist = di.GetFiles("*.*");
int numFiles = filelist.Length;
for (int i = 0; i < numFiles; i++)
{
FileInfo file = filelist[i];
File.Copy(Path.Combine(copyStruct.sourceDir, file.Name), Path.Combine(copyStruct.destDir, file.Name), true);
// This line updates the progress bar
worker.ReportProgress((int) ((float) i/numFiles*100));
}
}
This contains almost no error checking, so you'll have to add that, but it works with a few test directories on my system.
For the progress bar to be updated in your user interface, the process that is working on something must execute on another thread (otherwise it blocks the UI thread, and the UI will not be updated). The BackgroundWorker is a good candidate for doing this.
Perform your file copy loop in the DoWork event of the background worker, and call the BackgroundWorker.ReportProgress method to, well, report progress. In the event handler for the ProgressChanged event you can set the value in your ProgressBar control. You start the process by calling the RunWorkerAsync method on the BackgroundWorker component.
Since you are new to programming start with this.
Add
Application.DoEvents();
after
progressBar1.PerformStep();
This should get your application working for now. You'll eventually want to move your copy process to a thread/Background worker. But not knowing your abilities, the Application.DoEvents() is probably the easiest fix, but not the prefered fix.
have you tried progressbar1.Increment(x) where x is the number of files transferred?
Related
I try to perform an easy task in an other backgroundthread, so the UI doesn't get blocked, but it still gets blocked. Did I forget anything?
public partial class backgroundWorkerForm : Form
{
public backgroundWorkerForm()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
private void doWorkButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (backgroundWorker.IsBusy != true)
{
// Start the asynchronous operation.
backgroundWorker.RunWorkerAsync();
}
}
private void backgroundWorker_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
//BackgroundWorker worker = sender as BackgroundWorker;
if (textBoxOutput.InvokeRequired)
{
textBoxOutput.Invoke(new MethodInvoker(delegate
{
for (int i = 0; i < 10000; i++)
{
textBoxOutput.AppendText(i + Environment.NewLine);
}
}));
}
}
}
While the textBox gets filled, the UI is blocked:
Your app wants to repeatedly send updates from the background thread to the UI. There is a built-in mechanism for this: the ProgressChanged event for the background worker. A ReportProgress call is triggered in the background, but executes on the UI thread.
I do change one thing, however. Performance can degrade with too many cross-thread calls. So instead of sending an update every iteration, I instead will batch them into 100.
private void backgroundWorker1_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
const int maxIterations = 10000;
var progressLimit = 100;
var staging = new List<int>();
for (int i = 0; i < maxIterations; i++)
{
staging.Add(i);
if (staging.Count % progressLimit == 0)
{
// Only send a COPY of the staging list because we
// may continue to modify staging inside this loop.
// There are many ways to do this. Below is just one way.
backgroundWorker1.ReportProgress(staging.Count, staging.ToArray());
staging.Clear();
}
}
// Flush last bit in staging.
if (staging.Count > 0)
{
// We are done with staging here so we can pass it as is.
backgroundWorker1.ReportProgress(staging.Count, staging);
}
}
// The ProgressChanged event is triggered in the background thread
// but actually executes in the UI thread.
private void backgroundWorker1_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)
{
if (e.ProgressPercentage == 0) return;
// We don't care if an array or a list was passed.
var updatedIndices = e.UserState as IEnumerable<int>;
var sb = new StringBuilder();
foreach (var index in updatedIndices)
{
sb.Append(index.ToString() + Environment.NewLine);
}
textBoxOutput.Text += sb.ToString();
}
EDIT:
This requires you set the background worker's WorkerReportsProgress property to true.
It's not important that you pass a count with the ReportProgress call. I do so just to have something and to quickly check if I can return.
One really should keep in mind about how many events are being invoked and queued up. Your original app had 10,000 cross thread invocations and 10,000 changed text events for textBoxOutput. My example uses 100 cross thread calls since I use a page size of 100. I could still have generated 10,000 changed text events for the textbox, but instead use a StringBuilder object to hold a full page of changes and then update the textbox once for that page. That way the textbox only has 100 update events.
EDIT 2
Whether or not your app needs paging is not the main deal. The biggest take away should be that the background worker really should use ReportProgress when trying to communicate info back to the UI. See this MSDN Link. Of particular note is this:
You must be careful not to manipulate any user-interface objects in
your DoWork event handler. Instead, communicate to the user interface
through the ProgressChanged and RunWorkerCompleted events.
Your invocation code should be outside the loop. Everything in the invoked codeblock, will be executed on the UI thread, thus blocking it.
private void backgroundWorker_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
//BackgroundWorker worker = sender as BackgroundWorker;
for (int i = 0; i < 10000; i++)
{
// do long-running task
//if (textBoxOutput.InvokeRequired)
//{
textBoxOutput.Invoke(new MethodInvoker(delegate
{
textBoxOutput.AppendText(i + Environment.NewLine);
}));
//}
}
}
an easier way would be to do completely create your output text, and then paste the full output into the TextBox, then you only need one invocation
protected delegate void SetTextDelegate(TextBox tb, string Text);
protected void SetText(TextBox tb, string Text)
{
if (tb.InvokeRequired) {
tb.Invoke(new SetTextDelegate(SetText), tb, Text);
return;
}
tb.Text = Text;
}
and then inside your dowork
private void backgroundWorker_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
//BackgroundWorker worker = sender as BackgroundWorker;
for (int i = 0; i < 10000; i++)
{
sb.AppendLine(i.ToString());
}
SetText(textBoxOutput, sb.ToString());
}
I have made a simple gui in C# wpf, (sorry I can't show the GUI because my reputation is below 10)
It's consist of richtextbox and some other controls. Umm... this application will read a file then display the file contents to richtextbox line by line while reading the file using background worker. The function that read the file is like this :
public int parse_persoFile2(string fname, BackgroundWorker worker, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
if (fname == null) return -1;
System.IO.StreamReader ifs;
ifs = new System.IO.StreamReader(fname);
int max = (int)e.Argument;
int p = 0;
while (ifs.Peek() != -1)
{
string tempData = ifs.ReadLine();
if (tempData.Contains("CMD=5107") || tempData.Contains("CMD=5106") || tempData.Contains("CMD=5102"))
{
//field.AppendText(tempData.Remove(tempData.LastIndexOf('\\')).Remove(0, 4) + "\r\n");
//field.AppendText("--------\r\n");
//System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(500);
string data = tempData.Remove(tempData.LastIndexOf('\\')).Remove(0, 4) + "\r\n";
worker.ReportProgress(p, data);
}
p++;
}
worker.ReportProgress(100);
return 0;
}
As we can see, I'm using backgroundworker in this function to get the string readed from file then send that string to reportprogress in order to be displayed in richtextbox. As a note that persoFile2 function is made from another object in my program... :-)
Then for the rest, I have made the doWork function, worker_progressChanged, and worker_RunWorkerCompleted to make backroundWorker works correctly. Those codes are like this :
private void doWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
BackgroundWorker wrk = sender as BackgroundWorker;
parser.parse_persoFile2(fileName, wrk, e);
}
private void proggChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)
{
if(e.UserState != null)
mRTB.AppendText(e.UserState.ToString());
}
private void completed(object sender, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e)
{
MessageBox.Show("Ok....");
}
Umm.... When I run this program, it looks that my richtextbox is not prints the string line by line from the file, but it prints it just once at the end... :-3, .. Nah that's my real problem here. I have read this article http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.componentmodel.backgroundworker.aspx, but still have no idea.... :3
If you call the ReportProgress method too rapidly, it's possible that the UI thread will not have a chance to process the "progress" and update appropriately before the BackgroundWorker is hitting it again.
private void doWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
var wrk = sender as BackgroundWorker;
// obviously you wouldn't really do this :)
while(true)
wrk.ReportProgress(0);
}
To see the effect you're looking expecting, you could set an artificial "pause" in your DoWork event, in order to give the UI time to update appropriately:
private void doWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
var wrk = sender as BackgroundWorker;
var p = 0;
while(true)
{
wrk.ReportProgress(p++);
Thread.Sleep(100);
}
}
As for your situation, if the code is executing that quickly, you may not actually need to be executing it in a separate thread.
Alternatively, you could update your UI to say "Please wait. Loading...", then do everything you need to do in the BackgroundWorker, and just return the final result back to the UI at the end.
The name of the question is: "Updating the GUI from background worker", but the correct name world be: "Updating the GUI from background worker OR reporting multiple-variables (other than an integer) from background worker"
Please let me explain my situation. In a program I have a background worker which analyses the information.As the result of this analysis - form GUI elements should be populated with necessary data. In GUI I would like to update
2 datagridviews
1 listbox
5 labels
As I understand - I can only natively report 1 int value via ReportProgress() method of background worker.
So the question is - how can I pass a List<> ( + some other variables: string, int) via ReportProgress()? Basically - i want to update the GUI with the information but "1 integer" just won't do.. So either it should be possible to pass multiple variables via an ReportProgress() OR i can use an Invoke from inside the BackgroundWorker itself to update the GUI.. Personally I don't like the Invoke approach... What's your opinion?
Here is my code (see the comments):
private void button9_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) // start BW
{
bw.DoWork += new DoWorkEventHandler(backgroundWorker1_DoWork);
bw.RunWorkerCompleted += new RunWorkerCompletedEventHandler(backgroundWorker1_RunWorkerCompleted);
bw.ProgressChanged += new ProgressChangedEventHandler(backgroundWorker1_ProgressChanged);
bw.WorkerReportsProgress = true;
bw.WorkerSupportsCancellation = true;
bw.RunWorkerAsync(10);
}
private void button10_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) // cancel BW
{
bw.CancelAsync();
}
private void backgroundWorker1_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
int count = (int)e.Argument;
for (int i = 1; i <= count; i++)
{
if (bw.CancellationPending)
{
e.Cancel = true;
break;
}
List<List<string>> list_result = new List<List<string>>();
list_result = Proccess();
bw.ReportProgress(list_result.Count()); // right now I can only return a single INT
/////////// UPDATE GUI //////////////
// change datagridview 1 based on "list_result" values
// change datagridview 2
// change listbox
// change label 1
// change label ..
Thread.Sleep(20000);
}
MessageBox.Show("Complete!");
e.Result = sum;
}
private void backgroundWorker1_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)
{
prog_count++;
listBox1.Items.Add("Count: (" + prog_count.ToString() + "/20). Found: " + e.ProgressPercentage.ToString() + ".");
}
There's a UserState parameter when calling ReportProgress.
var list_result = new List<List<string>>();
new backgroundWorker1.ReportProgress(0, list_result);
The parameter type is an object so you'll have to cast it back to the type you need:
void backgroundWorker1_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)
{
var userState = (List<List<string>>)e.UserState;
}
The tricky issue with this is, how do you determine whether you're passing back a List, or a list of lists, or a single string, number, etc. You'll have to test for each possibility in the ProgressChanged event.
void backgroundWorker1_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)
{
var myList = e.UserState as List<List<string>>;
if (myList != null)
{
// use list
return;
}
int myNumber;
if (Int32.TryParse(e.UserState.ToString(), out myNumber))
{
// use number
return;
}
var myString = e.UserState.ToString();
// use string
}
Alternatively, you could create a class that holds all the values you need (or use Tuple), run everything in the background to populate that class, then pass that to the RunWorkerCompleted event, and update your UI all at once from there.
I have written two very easy methods that enable you to invoke your code (only if required) and you only need to write your code once. I think this makes Invoke much friendlier to use:
1) BeginInvoke
public static void SafeBeginInvoke(System.Windows.Forms.Control control, System.Action action)
{
if (control.InvokeRequired)
control.BeginInvoke(new System.Windows.Forms.MethodInvoker(() => { action(); }));
else
action();
}
2) Invoke
public static void SafeInvoke(System.Windows.Forms.Control control, System.Action action)
{
if (control.InvokeRequired)
control.Invoke(new System.Windows.Forms.MethodInvoker(() => { action(); }));
else
action();
}
It can be called like this:
SafeInvoke(textbox, () => { textbox.Text = "text got changed"; });
Alternatively you could just
System.Windows.Forms.Form.CheckForIllegalCrossThreadCalls = false;
(which only changes behaviour in debug mode btw) and look if you run into problems.More often than not you actually don't. It took me quite some time to find cases very Invoke is really required for things not to get messed up.
The basic pattern for updating the UI from another thread is:
If controlItem.InvokeRequired Then
controlItem.Invoke(Sub() controlItem.Text = textUpdateValue)
Else
controlItem.Text = textUpdateValue
End If
This could update your list of controls without requiring you to pass anything through ReportProgress. If you would like to update your control from within the thread, I don't believe you need to check InvokeRequired, because it will always be required. However, best practices might be to expose the setting of a control via a property and then to do the full check so you can call it from anywhere.
I have a Winforms application which is working fine.. using a BackgroundWorkerThread to manage GUI usability during processing of serial data to a device.
It's working fine.
Now, I am adding a new method, and copying what I did in other forms. But I am getting a cross thread exception.
I declare my BWT like this:
BackgroundWorker bw = new BackgroundWorker();
bw.WorkerSupportsCancellation = true;
bw.DoWork += DownloadGpsDataFromDevice;
bw.WorkerReportsProgress = true;
bw.RunWorkerAsync();
I then have a method delared like this, which does the background work:
private void DownloadGpsDataFromDevice(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
_performScreenUpdate = true;
tsStatus.Text = "Downloading GPS Data...";
Invalidate();
Refresh();
Common.WriteLog("Extracting raw GPS data. Sending LL.");
ReplyString raw = DeviceServices.ExecuteCommand("$LL");
The DeviceServices.ExecuteCommand("$LL"); is the bit that does the work, but I am getting the exception on the previous line, where I log to a text file. Now, that makes you worry - writing to a file. However, I have done this thousands of times in another BWT.
I made the writing thread safe. Here this my Common.WriteLog method:
public static void WriteLog(string input)
{
lock (_lockObject)
{
WriteLogThreadSafe(input);
}
}
private static void WriteLogThreadSafe(string input)
{
Directory.CreateDirectory(LogFilePath);
StreamWriter w = File.AppendText(LogFilePath + #"\" + LogFileName);
try
{
w.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}\t{1}", DateTime.Now, input));
}
catch (Exception e)
{
System.Console.WriteLine("Error writing to log file!");
System.Console.WriteLine("Tried to write: [" + input + "]");
System.Console.WriteLine("Failed with error: [" + e.Message + "]");
}
finally
{
w.Close();
}
}
This have been working for ages. I don't believe the error is there. I think I am just missing something on the call maybe?
You cannot change UI elements from BackgroundWorker thread. You'll have to marshall back to UI thread by calling Invoke().
Try this
private void DownloadGpsDataFromDevice(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
_performScreenUpdate = true;
Invoke((MethodInvoker)(() => {
tsStatus.Text = "Downloading GPS Data...";
Invalidate();
Refresh();
});
...
The issue is that you are updating UI elements from non-UI thread:
Those lines should not be inside of DownloadGpsDataFromDevice
tsStatus.Text = "Downloading GPS Data...";
Invalidate();
Refresh();
To take advantage of BackgroundWorker run method bw.ReportProgress(0);. Update UI in ProgressChanged handler, which was specifically designed for this purpose.
void bw_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)
{
if (e.ProgressPercentage = 0)
{
tsStatus.Text = "Downloading GPS Data...";
Invalidate();
Refresh();
}
}
Some instances can't or should not be accessed by multiple threads. You have two options to protect your data from cross thread exceptions.
You can lock your object when you access it from multiple threads with a lock:
object locker = new object();
SomeObject MyObject = new SomeObject();
private void FromMultipleThread()
{
lock(locker)
{
MyObject = OtherObject;
}
}
Your second option is to lock your thread with a ManualResetEvent. It is very simple, you only have to call WaitOne() from you ManualResetEvent to lock your thread while an other thread access your "cross threaded" Object.
In your case, you would want to change your UI from the reportProgress of your backgroundWorker. The reportProgress will come back to the initial thread, then you can modify your UI.
Are you sure that is the right line? I don't think you should be able to update the ui in your worker. Try commenting out the gui update and clean and build your solution to see if the logging is really the problem. To update the ui, set WorkerReportsProgress and create an event handler for that to update the ui and report progress in the worker.
I have a background worker running a long database task. i want to show the progress bar while the task is running. Somehow the background worker won't report the progress of the task.
This is what i have:
BackgroundWorker _bgwLoadClients;
_bgwLoadClients = new BackgroundWorker();
_bgwLoadClients.WorkerReportsProgress = true;
_bgwLoadClients.DoWork += new DoWorkEventHandler(_bgwLoadClients_DoWork);
_bgwLoadClients.RunWorkerCompleted += new RunWorkerCompletedEventHandler(_bgwLoadClients_RunWorkerCompleted);
_bgwLoadClients.ProgressChanged += new ProgressChangedEventHandler(_bgwLoadClients_ProgressChanged);
_bgwLoadClients.RunWorkerAsync(parms);
private void _bgwLoadClients_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
DataTable dt = getdate();
e.Result = dt;
}
void _bgwLoadClients_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)
{
progressBar1.Value = e.ProgressPercentage;
}
I am doing this in WPF, but i guess it won't make a difference.
Thanks in advance
You need to break your DoWork method down into reportable progress and then call ReportProgress.
Take for example the following:
private void Something_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
// If possible, establish how much there is to do
int totalSteps = EstablishWorkload();
for ( int i=0; i<totalSteps; i++)
{
// Do something...
// Report progress, hint: sender is your worker
(sender as BackgroundWorker).ReportProgress((int)(100/totalSteps)*i, null);
}
}
If your work can't be predetermined, try adding your own percentages:
private void Something_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
// some work
(sender as BackgroundWorker).ReportProgress(25, null);
// some work
(sender as BackgroundWorker).ReportProgress(50, null);
// some work
(sender as BackgroundWorker).ReportProgress(60, null);
// some work
(sender as BackgroundWorker).ReportProgress(99, null);
}
Modify the WorkReportProgress property of the backgroundworker object to true either in the properties window or in code.
You have to manualy call ReportProgress() to raise the ProgressChanged event.
You need to call worker.ReportProgress(percentComplete) in your DoWork method.
percentComplete should be computed based on the total work. For example:
for(int i =0; i != 100; i++) {
// do something
worker.ReportProgress(i);
}
Sometimes it is difficult to partition a job in several chunks to be possible to report the progress. Unfortunately the BackgroundWorker does not solve this, you have to do it yourself.
just report progress on dowork event
private void _bgwLoadClients_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e) {
int progresValue0to100 = 75;
(sender as System.ComponentModel.BackgroundWorker).ReportProgress(progresValue0to100);
//do your jobs..
}
it works like this
Progress must be sent from within the DoWork event by calling the ReportProgress method on the BackgroundWorker. In your case, you can't report any progress because all of the work is being done outside of the DoWork function. You can only report progress before and after the call to getdate(), but not during the call since the BackgroundWorker thread is busy.