Extended Small Basic Library (ESL) Extension - 0.4.2a - ESLFile Patches

Question

Extended Small Basic Library, or ESL, is a small but powerful extension for Microsoft Small Basic. Although it didn't get off to a great start, and I was unable to work on it after the initial release on the 6th of October 2012, it is back, and with a new thread.

ESL is comprised of 12 classes, each of which either expand and improve on the Small Basic standard library, or bring new features of their own into the mix. These include advanced features such as cryptography, tetration, and include useful features such as being able to use C# arrays as storage, which are significantly faster than Small Basic arrays.

ESL is an open source project, and a link to the source code will be at the end of this post. ESL is currently in an "Alpha" state of development, and may be buggy. All bug reports are welcome, but please try not to continuously report the same bug.

ESL on GitHub: https://github.com/McSherry/ESL
ESL Download: https://munycdn.com/a/McSherry/ESL_0.4.2a.zip
ESL  on Ohloh: https://www.ohloh.net/p/ESL
HTML ReadMe: http://mcsherry.github.com/ESL/
Getting Started: https://munycdn.https://munycdn.com/a/McSherry/Getting Started with ESL.pdf.pdf

Please feel free to provide suggestions and criticism, although please try to ensure criticism is both constructive and structured. Thanks for your time, and I hope this extension is useful for you.

If you'd like to contribute to ESL, please fork the GitHub repository, and then file a merge request with your changes. It would also be helpful if you used the Issue Tracker provided by GitHub.

Licencing and legal information is available in the README, as well as a list of credits for various components that make up parts of ESL.

Answer 1

Nice extension! I will play with it when I have some free time.

I am also really happy to see it is open source.

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Answer 2

Development source code will be made available if anyone wants to download and compile it. However, you'll need to switch to the "nightly" branch on GitHub, as the "master" branch will only be updated with the code in the currently released version of ESL. To switch to the "nightly" branch, see below:

The source code on this branch isn't guaranteed to be stable, but is likely to contain more features than the "master" branch prior to the release of a new version.

Answer 3

If anyone wants to know what will be coming in the next version, you may want to check the commit logs for the "nightly" branch, as these provide a summary of each addition to that branch.

Available here: https://github.com/McSherry/ESL/commits/nightly

Here is an example from yesterday, the 31st of January:

Answer 4

I'm happy to be able to release the 0.3.0a update. This update includes quite a few new features. Here is the full list:

• GZip Compression (untested)
• RC2 Encryption
• DES Encryption
• AES Encryption
• Fibonacci Number Generation (up to n=138)
• The mathematical constant e
• The mathematical constant Phi (a.k.a. the Golden Ratio)
• Number concatenation (32-bit and 64-bit)
• HMAC (Hash-based Message Authentication Code) variants of SHA hashes
• CRC-32 (ANSI X3.66) and CRC-64 (ECMA-182) checksum generation
• Hyperexponentation (tetration)
• Further text manipulation (ToUpper, ToLower, Reverse, etc)
• RIPEMD160 Hash function
• More file-format definitions
• Primality checking (whether a number is prime)
• A new HTML Read-Me

If you have any suggestions for features, feel free to suggest them. Please also feel free to fork the GitHub repository, change/update the code, and file a merge request.

This update is available to download from https://munycdn.com/a/McSherry/ESL_0.3.0a.zip

Answer 5

Nice extension! There are many very useful methods. I think it is a great addition to the growing SB extensions community.

I have one suggestion: you may want to rename ESLMaths.XOR to ESLMaths.BitwiseXOR so it is in the same location in the IntelliSense wheel with all the other methods.

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Answer 6

Nice extension! There are many very useful methods. I think it is a great addition to the growing SB extensions community.

I have one suggestion: you may want to rename ESLMaths.XOR to ESLMaths.BitwiseXOR so it is in the same location in the IntelliSense wheel with all the other methods.

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It has now been renamed within the development source code. When this code will be merged into the release source code, I can't say. Although, prior to a source code merge is the best time to voice any suggestions, if anyone has any. 

Answer 7

One improvement coming in 0.4.0a is the removal of hard-coded file type definitions from ESL. These definitions are now stored in a separate XML file, which may be optionally included. If it is included, the ESLFile.Identify() method will function. If it isn't, it won't. Now is a great time to begin suggesting file types to be added.

Here is the XML file, showing all file types presently defined in ESL: 

https://github.com/McSherry/ESL/blob/nightly/src/xml/ESLFormats.xml

Answer 8

Another update to ESL has been released, and now we are on 0.4.0a. Here's what's new:

• Encryption methods have been patched to fix "Bad Data." exceptions; output from encryption is Base64-only now.
• ESLWeb has been renamed to ESLNetworking.
• Added an internal IP Address check to ESLNetworking.
• Added an external IP Address check to ESLNetworking, as well as a check for an Internet connection.
• OctalFromInteger and OctalToInteger added to ESLMaths
• ExtractRange and Remove added to ESLText
• ESLCrypto renamed to ESLSecurity
• Added a password crack-time estimator to ESLSecurity (crashes incurred from large crack times)
• ESLStorage now allows for 64 arrays rather than 16.
• File definitions for ESLFile.Identify() now use the external file ESLFormats.xml.
• ESLCompute class added
• ThreadedCall() method added to ESLCompute to allow multithreaded Small Basic programs.
• The time of compilation has been added to the ESL class.
• Support for XTEA encryption via an XTEA engine.

This update is available from here: https://munycdn.com/a/McSherry/ESL_0.4.0a.zip

Answer 9

A basic "Getting Started" document for ESL is now available. It describes the classes within ESL, as well as providing a few code examples, and any relevant legal information.

It's available here: https://munycdn.com/a/McSherry/Getting Started with ESL.pdf

Answer 10

Very nice additions in the new version and great document! The PDF is concise, formatted well and well-written: nice work!

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Answer 11

This is pretty cool. I plan to blog about this tomorrow.

Let's make this sticky for a week or so. 

Thanks!

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Ed Price (a.k.a User Ed), SQL Server Customer Program Manager (Blog, Small Basic, Wiki Ninjas, Wiki)

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Answer 12

Okay, I featured the extension in this blog post:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/smallbasic/archive/2013/02/16/small-basic-extension-extended-small-basic-library-esl-0-4-0a.aspx

Please review it and let me know if any change requests.

Thanks!

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Ed Price (a.k.a User Ed), SQL Server Customer Program Manager (Blog, Small Basic, Wiki Ninjas, Wiki)

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Answer 13

I've just released the ESL 0.4.1a patch, which patches a bug reported by martmen related to the ESLSystem class. As well as fixing this bug, I also added the method ESLNetworking.Ping(), which allows developers to measure the amount of time it takes to get a response from a server, in milliseconds.

This patch also includes:

• Conversion to and from Ternary
• Methods for mathematics using various radices (e.g. HexMultiply(), OctalDivide()).
• Generating up to 64-character encryption keys from a password using PBKDF2.

This patch is available from https://munycdn.com/a/McSherry/ESL_0.4.1a.zip

If you find any more bugs, please don't hesitate to report them! Thanks :)

Answer 14

I updated the blog post with the 0.41a patch link and info: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/smallbasic/archive/2013/02/16/small-basic-extension-extended-small-basic-library-esl-0-4-0a.aspx 

Thanks!

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Ed Price (a.k.a User Ed), SQL Server Customer Program Manager (Blog, Small Basic, Wiki Ninjas, Wiki)

Answer an interesting question? Create a wiki article about it!

Answer 15

Something I would like to see in the ESLMaths class would be imaginary exponents using Euler's formula, and the idea that i squared is -1. It would help for what I'm working on, at least. What I was thinking of doing with that would be making a multibrot with a complex (or at least imaginary) exponent, if that's possible.

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I am an 11 year old that knows Small Basic and is learning Java and C. 'Binary is as easy as 1, 10, 11.'

Answer 16

Something I would like to see in the ESLMaths class would be imaginary exponents using Euler's formula, and the idea that i squared is -1. It would help for what I'm working on, at least. What I was thinking of doing with that would be making a multibrot with a complex (or at least imaginary) exponent, if that's possible.

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I am an 11 year old that knows Small Basic and is learning Java and C. 'Binary is as easy as 1, 10, 11.'

I'll see what I can do, but I make no guarantees. At the moment, exponentiation is handled simply by turning the input to the function into an integer type. Imaginary exponents would require quite different logic, if I am not mistaken. 

Answer 17

@Math Man

Complex numbers were introduced for .Net 4 (SB uses .Net 3.5).  I suggest also having a go in C# or VB using these.  Drawing a complex plane convergence plot like multibrot will also be much faster than in SB.

Also, here is an old (but slow to run) complex plane convergence plot.

GraphicsWindow.Width = 640
GraphicsWindow.Height = 400
GraphicsWindow.Show()
For y = 1 To 399
  b = (y * -.000007) +.1014
  For x = 1 To 639
    a = (x * .0000062) - .75
    v = 0
    w = 0
    i = 0
    While (w > -2 And w < 2 And v > -2 And v < 2 And i < 256)
      c = (v * v) - (w * w) + a
      d = (2 * w * v) + b
      v = c
      w = d 
      i = i + 1
    EndWhile
    GraphicsWindow.SetPixel(x,y,GraphicsWindow.GetColorFromRGB(i,2*i,3*i))
  EndFor
EndFor

Answer 18

The ESL 0.4.2a patch is now available!

This patch fixes an error with ESLFile, which was reported by a user via email, and includes some small functionality updates to ESL. These are:

• ResolveIP added to ESLNetworking. This function transforms an IP address (e.g. 127.0.0.1) into a machine name.
• ResolveHost added to ESLNetworking. This function transforms a URI (e.g. www.example.com) into an IP address.

The Getting Started with ESL guide has also been updated to include an example usage of these functions.

You can download the update here: https://munycdn.com/a/McSherry/ESL_0.4.2a.zip  
You can view the Getting Started guide here: https://munycdn.com/a/McSherry/Getting Started with ESL.pdf