Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2017 May 7

= May 7 =

Can a bot be used to add parameters to infoboxes?
Recently, WT:SONGS was closed as "Merge". Work has begun on implementing the merger and the use of a bot came up. Is it possible to add parameters to the infoboxes using a bot? The two infoboxes are Infobox song (used for 6,800+ articles) and infobox single (50,000+ articles). Infobox song/sandbox has the combined code from both, and with some adjustments, is largely compatible when tested with existing infoboxes. However, there are a couple of sticky areas, that maybe adding parameters to the two existing infoboxes may solve before merging them. Before going into too much detail, can this be easily done by a bot? If not, it would require a different approach. —Ojorojo (talk) 18:43, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

How to install a .apk file type(s) in a Smart phone
I bought a smart phone, inserted 16GB memory SD.

I wish to download VLC Media player. My will is to download this particular .apk, cause I can see a locking system (button or pad lock) in the pictures displayed (therefore I'm assuming that you can do security protection...)

1) Wikipedians guided someone above the following. Could you be more specific please?

2) How do I install from the memory card and than re-save the extracted files and folders in the same memory card, rather than using internal 16GB ROM...?

43.245.123.219 (talk) 21:33, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Your device should have the "Play Store" installed on it. Open that app, and search for "VLC".
 * Once you find it, click the "Install" button. Easy.
 * If your device does NOT have the play store, the procedure is more difficult, and most apps will be difficult to find legitimately. But VLC does offer an APK download, so go to this address using your phone's browser. Download the correct APK for your device, and when you open the file, it should begin installing. ApLundell (talk) 15:01, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
 * If your device does NOT have the play store, the procedure is more difficult, and most apps will be difficult to find legitimately. But VLC does offer an APK download, so go to this address using your phone's browser. Download the correct APK for your device, and when you open the file, it should begin installing. ApLundell (talk) 15:01, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Size of dynamic array on 64-bit Windows
How large (in bytes) can a dynamic array be in 64-bit Windows? I've experimented and they can be larger than 32GB. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 23:23, 7 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Wouldn't it only be limited by the RAM ? (Technically it could be larger, using paging space, but that rapidly becomes unusably slow.)  18.4 million TB is addressable by a 64 bit index, so that sure isn't the limitation.  StuRat (talk) 01:49, 8 May 2017 (UTC)


 * That is what I was hoping, but some things aren't fully 64-bit. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 02:20, 8 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Of course, whatever software you are using may impose it's own limits. StuRat (talk) 02:40, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The compiler and IDE matter. I know I've run into issues using SharpDevelop (when I was trying to avoid using a a db to hold large amounts of data) with buffer overflows on very large arrays, and when I switched the code over to Visual Studio, it compiled and ran just fine. We're talking ~18 million indexes in this case, with errors showing up about 90% of the way through writing it, so I'm guessing 224 was the upper limit in SharpDevelop. Each member of the array was a string with < 1024 characters. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  12:38, 8 May 2017 (UTC)


 * If you are truly programming to the operating system - and not to some runtime environment - then you'll want to review About Memory Management... and Virtual Address Space (64-bit version). "By default, 64-bit Microsoft Windows-based applications have a user-mode address space of several terabytes. For precise values, see Memory Limits for Windows and Windows Server Releases..."
 * As the programmer, you can assume "a lot of memory" is available. You can use some of the more esoteric parts of the Windows API to check whether that memory will be fast - i.e., in the cache, in the RAM, or paged to the hard-drive.
 * The short answer is, a regular user-land application that is compiled with Microsoft's toolchain can do stuff like malloc to create memory allocations in the neighborhood of eight terabytes on most Windows platforms, and quite a lot larger on many of the more specialized technical versions of Windows. You, the programmer, must be extremely careful with your pointers and array-index data types when you use such exceptionally-large allocations.  You also need to be very careful to distinguish between virtual memory and physical memory, and recognize the very big difference between "allocating" and "using" memory.
 * Nimur (talk) 15:09, 8 May 2017 (UTC)