Latest Contributions by DavidPlume1

Yes, I was afraid of that.  Thanks for checking. A little background -- I have an add-in extension running in ArcMap 10.1  (.NET Framework 4.0).  This project has been underway for a year or so.  Along the way we developed a number of processes that run geoprocessing tools in a project toolbox.  The project has been on the shelve for a month or so but was running fine last time I did work with it.  Naturally, I had scheduled a demo to show folks the project on Monday this week.  When I got into it I discovered that none of my gp Executes work.  The toolbox is still valid and the tools execute normally from Catalog. Eventually I built the simple code block you see above in a separate add-in button to make sure that there wasn't something in the extension that was clobbering things. When that didn't work I ran a repair on Visual Studio and re-installed Arc.  That did nothing. I've removed all of my extensions and add-ins except the test case and can not find the problem.  The toolbox tool (sample code above in original post) is a very simple arcpy script that looks grabs the string parameter and gives it back: import arcpy if __name__ == '__main__': s = arcpy.GetParameter(0) arcpy.AddMessage(s) Thanks Again. ... View more

Richard, Thanks for the speedy reply.  The decimal code ErrorCode from the exception is -2147467259. I've not decoded this but did find a thread that suggest this code is a generic failure code but I'd be grateful for any thread that leads out of this ditch I've veered into! David ... View more

OK I've worked out what object(s) manage(s) single/multi part settings.  This doesn't explain why the interface disables the basic command when posted on a toolbar but does give you a way to add this functionality to your own controls. You derive IMultiPartTextElement from IElement: (Please forgive the ragged bits in the following development code) Private Sub ToggleSingleMulti() On Error GoTo lblError     Dim pDoc As IMxDocument     Set pDoc = ThisDocument         Dim pMap As IMap         Set pMap = pDoc.FocusMap     Dim pFeatSel As IEnumFeature     Set pFeatSel = pMap.FeatureSelection         Dim pFeat As IFeature     Set pFeat = pFeatSel.Next         Dim pAnnoFeat As IAnnotationFeature2     Dim pElem As IElement     Dim pTextEl As ITextElement     Dim pMultTextEl As IMultiPartTextElement         Dim pAnnoClassExt As IAnnotationClassExtension2     Set pAnnoClassExt = GetAnnoFeaClsExt(pMap, pDoc)         If pAnnoClassExt Is Nothing Then               Exit Sub     End If         Do While Not pFeat Is Nothing             If TypeOf pFeat Is IAnnotationFeature2 Then                                Set pAnnoFeat = pFeat             Set pElem = pAnnoFeat.Annotation                         If Not pElem Is Nothing Then                             Set pMultTextEl = pElem                 If pMultTextEl.IsMultipart Then                     pMultTextEl.ConvertToSinglePart                 Else                     pMultTextEl.ConvertToMultiPart pAnnoClassExt.Display(pElem)                 End If                                 pAnnoFeat.Annotation = pElem                 Set pFeat = pAnnoFeat                                 pFeat.Store                             End If                                 End If                 Set pFeat = pFeatSel.Next             Loop             Exit Sub lblError:     Debug.Print Err.Description     Exit Sub     End Sub Public Function GetAnnoFeaClsExt(pMap As IMap, pMxdoc As IMxDocument) As IAnnotationClassExtension     On Error GoTo lblError     'Dim pMxDoc As IMxDocument   'Set pMxDoc = Nothing        Dim pID As UID  'Get a handle to the Editor extension   Set pID = New UID     Dim pAnnoExt As IAnnotationEditExtension     Dim pAnnoID As New UID   pAnnoID = "esriEditor.AnnotationEditExtension"     Dim pAnnoClass As IAnnotationClassExtension   pID = "esriEditor.Editor"     Dim pEditor As IEditor2   Set pEditor = Application.FindExtensionByCLSID(pID)     Dim pEditLayers As IEditLayers        If pEditor.EditState = esriStateNotEditing Then         MsgBox "Please start the Editor to select points."         Set GetAnnoFeaClsExt = Nothing     Exit Function       End If     Set pEditLayers = pEditor 'QI to grab CurrentLayer property      If pEditLayers Is Nothing Then            return nothing    End If    Dim iLayerCount As Integer Dim pFeatureLayer As IFeatureLayer For iLayerCount = 0 To pMap.LayerCount - 1     If TypeOf pMap.Layer(iLayerCount) Is IFeatureLayer Then                 Set pFeatureLayer = pMap.Layer(iLayerCount)         s = pFeatureLayer.Name                 pEditLayers.SetCurrentLayer pFeatureLayer, 0                 Debug.Print pEditLayers.CurrentLayer.Name         End If         Next iLayerCount       Set pAnnoClass = pEditLayers.CurrentLayer.FeatureClass.Extension     Set GetAnnoFeaClsExt = pAnnoClass     Exit Function lblError:     Debug.Print Err.Description     Exit Function     End Function ... View more

Hi Everyone, For the sake of completion in this thread, we solved our particular problem by simplifying all of the input features and by simplifying the resulting feature on each iteration of the while loop:            Dim pNewFeature As ESRI.ArcGIS.Geodatabase.IFeature = Nothing             Dim pNewPolyline As ESRI.ArcGIS.Geometry.IPolyline = Nothing             Dim pOtherPolyline As ESRI.ArcGIS.Geometry.IPolyline = Nothing             Dim pTopoOp As ESRI.ArcGIS.Geometry.ITopologicalOperator5 = Nothing             Dim pFeature As ESRI.ArcGIS.Geodatabase.IFeature = Nothing             '  Featureset contains two or more sector line             '  features that have the same assignment and belong             '  to the same perimeter polygon.  Merge their shapes             '  to create as single geometry from them.             '  Get the feature metadata from the first feature.             '  it will be used to populate metadata on the resulting             '  feature.  Since all the line features are associated             '  with the same polygon, they should all have the             '  same metadata.             Dim pMetadata As FIMTExtensionNET.clsFIMTMetadataNET             pMetadata = Nothing             FeatureSet.Reset()             pFeature = FeatureSet.Next             Do While Not pFeature Is Nothing                 If pMetadata Is Nothing Then                     pMetadata = New FIMTExtensionNET.clsFIMTMetadataNET                     pMetadata.GetFeatureMetaData(pFeature)                 End If                 If pNewPolyline Is Nothing Then                     pNewPolyline = pFeature.ShapeCopy                     pTopoOp = CType(pNewPolyline, ESRI.ArcGIS.Geometry.ITopologicalOperator5)                     pTopoOp.IsKnownSimple_2 = False '051710                     pTopoOp.Simplify() '051710                 Else                     pOtherPolyline = pFeature.ShapeCopy                     'Simplify the just obtained OtherPolyLine                     pTopoOp = CType(pOtherPolyline, ESRI.ArcGIS.Geometry.ITopologicalOperator5) '051710                     pTopoOp.IsKnownSimple_2 = False                     pTopoOp.Simplify()                     'Reset the pTopoOp to pNewPolyLine in prep for the union                     pTopoOp = CType(pNewPolyline, ESRI.ArcGIS.Geometry.ITopologicalOperator5)                     pNewPolyline = pTopoOp.Union(pOtherPolyline)                     'Simplify the resulting New Line                     pTopoOp = CType(pNewPolyline, ESRI.ArcGIS.Geometry.ITopologicalOperator5)                     pTopoOp.IsKnownSimple_2 = False                     pTopoOp.Simplify()                 End If                 pFeature = FeatureSet.Next             Loop I hope this is helpful. D ... View more

Thanks again Kirk, Yes, it seems like, unlike the old days working in MFC C++, the best policy is to leave your objects alone; trying to explicitly clean them up can cause more harm than good.  This confirms the adage: no good deed goes unpunished!   I found the following link that seems to confirm this and offers a bit of insight into how to think about COM objects and an approach to managing them: Please see: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/vsto/thread/d11c67eb-3ad4-4e36-8707-37e671a37279 From that link: Hi Gary, Yes, managing Runtime Callable Wrappers (RCWs) can be tricky.  However, depending on what you are doing, you may not need to manage them at all.  As you know RCW's will hold a reference to their underlying COM object.  When the RCW's finalizer is run, they will release their reference.  So when do RCW's get finalized?  At a minimum, they get finalized when the AppDomain is torn down.  During teardown, all objects are collected regardless of whether they are rooted.  Before AppDomain teardown, there are two other ways that RCWs could be finalized.  The first would be when the objects are no longer rooted and therefore become eligable for collection.  If the GC0 heap fills up, a garbage collection will occur, and those RCWs that are eligible will be finalized.  The second way finalization can happen is if you explicitly force a garbage collection by calling GC.Collect.  If you do that, any RCWs eligible for collection will be finalized.  By calling WaitForPendingFinalizers, you ensure that the finalizer thread has finalized all of the objects in the queue before your thread continues. In addition, as you are aware, you can deterministically force the RCWs to release their reference by calling either Marshal.ReleaseComObject or Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject.  The difference between the two calls is this.  RCW's have a reference count of their own which gets bumped when the IUnknown is marshalled across AppDomain boundaries.  Calling Marshal.ReleaseComObject will only actually release when the RCW reference count goes to zero--otherwise it has the effect of decrementing this internal count.  Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject, however, will call the release regardless of what the RCW reference count is. So the real question is when do you need to be explicit about enforcing RCW finalization or calling Marshal.Final/ReleaseComObject?  The answer is whenever you can't afford to wait for GC to happen (knowing that it might not occur until shutdown).  The two most likely reasons would be if the object is holding onto a resource (such as a file handle) or if memory pressure caused by keeping the object(s) alive was hurting performance. If you know you are going to need to deterministically control the RCW cleanup, the best thing to do is to keep them isloated (and not pass them around) so that you can just call Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject when you are done with them.  As long as you can guarantee that you won't try to call into the RCW again after you make that call, then this is a safe approach.  This is better than trying to force a GC yourself since doing that will promote any existing objects in the heap to later generations which will mean they will potentially hang around in memory longer than they would have otherwise. That said, the ideal is to do nothing and just let the system take care of everything.  Managing this stuff on your own is harder, so be sure you understand your reasons for doing so before you take that on. Sincerely, Geoff Darst Microsoft VSTO Team Regards David ... View more

For the sake of the thread, the following links provide a bit more insight into what is happening relative to releasing COM objects and the role of the Using block. Bottom line, my take is this:  unlike VB6, setting COM objects = nothing doesn't really buy very much.  When your functions and subs go out of scope your objects and their respective wrappers lurk around in object purgatory waiting for the garbage collector to clean them up.  Generally speaking, this isn't a problem but for some resources it is best to explicitly force the release so one doesn't tie up limited resources such as tables. Hence, Marshal.ReleaseComObject(pMyCOMObject) --> I think of this sort of like pMyCOMObject = nothing in VB6 See also: http://www.getdotnetcode.com/gdncstore/free/Articles/ReleasingComObjectsWithVbNet.htm For those interested in the ComReleaser and the role of the Using statement see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/htd05whh.aspx In part from that article: Sometimes your code requires an unmanaged resource, such as a file handle, a COM wrapper, or a SQL connection. A Using block guarantees the disposal of one or more such resources when your code is finished with them. This makes them available for other code to use. Managed resources are disposed of by the .NET Framework garbage collector (GC) without any extra coding on your part. You do not need a Using block for managed resources. However, you can still use a Using block to force the disposal of a managed resource instead of waiting for the garbage collector. A Using block has three parts: acquisition, usage, and disposal. �?� Acquisition means creating a variable and initializing it to refer to the system resource. The Using statement can acquire one or more resources, or you can acquire exactly one resource before entering the block and supply it to the Using statement. If you supply resourceexpression, you must acquire the resource before passing control to the Using statement. �?� Usage means accessing the resources and performing actions with them. The statements between Using and End Using represent the usage of the resources. �?� Disposal means calling the Dispose method on the object in resourcename. This allows the object to cleanly terminate its resources. The End Using statement disposes of the resources under the Using block's control. Please feel free to comment with suggestions or corrections if I've missed something.  Otherwise, I hope this helps others sort out this important topic and is helpful to others. D ... View more

Thanks again everyone, I'm finding the whole conversation very instructive and hope that others will also find it so in the future.  Here, in our current project, It seems to me that our best strategy now will be to change our coding to the patterns as James suggested, still using ComReleaser.   Furthermore we'll review our code to confine the use of the releaser to the basics that James also cited. Best Regards. ... View more

Neil, James and Kirk, Your replies have been very helpful, thank you --  A tip of my hat to the masters! For the sake of my own understanding and the thread then, regarding RCWs I am left wondering: see: http://edndoc.esri.com/arcobjects/9.2/NET/fe9f7423-2100-4c70-8bd6-f4f16d5ce8c0.htm,  and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.runtime.interopservices.marshal.releasecomobject.aspx Reading at MSDN,  I see that "Every time a COM interface pointer enters the common language runtime (CLR), it is wrapped in an RCW."  I take this to mean, essentially, that all our our ArcObjects in .NET have a corresponding RCW.  Furthermore MSDN says: Therefore, use the ReleaseComObject only if it is absolutely required. If you want to call this method to ensure that a COM component is released at a determined time, consider using the FinalReleaseComObject method instead. FinalReleaseComObject will release the underlying COM component regardless of how many times it has re-entered the CLR. The internal reference count of the RCW is incremented by one every time the COM component re-enters the CLR. Therefore, you could call the ReleaseComObject method in a loop until the value returned is zero. This achieves the same result as the FinalReleaseComObject method. So: it seems that a good rule of thumb would be -- if you explicitly  know that you should release the object, such as a cursor, then do it otherwise leave things to the garbage collector. So consequently I'm wondering, is there a rule of thumb to help one detect which objects we should consider for explicit release, either by ReleaseComObject, FinalReleaseComObject or alternatively, ComReleaser? Best Regards David ... View more

Hi Rob Yes, I found all that behavior a bit challenging too. I set up document and ActiveView Events in an extension.  I found that I had to setup the document events only once.  I removed the events on extension shut down. On the other hand, each time the document.ActiveViewChanged event is fired I remove my old events then add the new ones, see below. Hope this helps. Private Sub OnActiveViewChanged()         Try             Dim pActiveView As IActiveView = m_pMxDocument.ActiveView             Dim pMap As IMap             Dim pPageLayout As IPageLayout             If TypeOf pActiveView Is IMap Then                 pMap = pActiveView.FocusMap                 m_pActiveViewEvents = CType(pMap, IActiveViewEvents_Event)                 Debug.Print("Active View is IMAP, FocusMap is:  " & pActiveView.FocusMap.Name)             ElseIf TypeOf pActiveView Is IPageLayout Then                 pPageLayout = m_pMxDocument.PageLayout                 m_pActiveViewEvents = CType(pPageLayout, IActiveViewEvents_Event)                 Debug.Print("Active View is IPageLayout, FocusMap is:  " & pActiveView.FocusMap.Name)             Else                 Return             End If             Me.RemoveActiveViewEvents()             Me.AddActiveViewEvents()         Catch ex As Exception             DebugMsgBox("OnActiveviewChanged() Error: " & ex.ToString)         End Try     End Sub    Public Sub AddActiveViewEvents()         Try             If m_pActiveViewEvents IsNot Nothing Then                 AddHandler m_pActiveViewEvents.FocusMapChanged, AddressOf OnActiveViewEventsFocusMapChanged                 AddHandler m_pActiveViewEvents.ItemAdded, AddressOf OnActiveViewEventsItemAdded                 AddHandler m_pActiveViewEvents.ItemDeleted, AddressOf OnActiveViewEventsItemDeleted                 DebugMsgBox("AddActiveViewEvents")             Else                 DebugMsgBox("AddActiveViewEvents m_pActiveViewEvents = NOTHING")             End If         Catch ex As Exception         End Try     End Sub     Public Sub RemoveActiveViewEvents()         Try             If m_pActiveViewEvents IsNot Nothing Then                 RemoveHandler m_pActiveViewEvents.FocusMapChanged, AddressOf OnActiveViewEventsFocusMapChanged                 RemoveHandler m_pActiveViewEvents.ItemAdded, AddressOf OnActiveViewEventsItemAdded                 RemoveHandler m_pActiveViewEvents.ItemDeleted, AddressOf OnActiveViewEventsItemDeleted                 DebugMsgBox("RemoveActiveViewEvents")             Else                 DebugMsgBox("RemoveActiveViewEvents - m_pActiveViewEvents = NOTHING")             End If         Catch ex As Exception         End Try     End Sub ... View more

For those who are interested, a bit more information: If one cannot ensure that the polyline created is not simple then we need to call the simplify method. A geometry is not simple when it does not meet the all the constraints associated with them. The following documentation explains how the simplify method simplifies the geometry. http://resources.esri.com/help/9.3/ArcGISDesktop/com/samples/Geometry/e7840a7a-f228-46d2-9c45-81dd5527faa3.htm http://resources.esri.com/help/9.3/ArcGISDesktop/ArcObjects/esriGeometry/Geometry_overview.htm http://resources.esri.com/help/9.3/ArcGISDesktop/ArcObjects/esriGeometry/ITopologicalOperator_Simplify.htm ... View more

Thanks again Kirk, I've added your recommended code with good success.  I've run through the problem scenario about 10-15 times with no COM Exception thrown.  We might be there! ... View more