Question

I have been writing a c++ code for myself,which iterates in a directory and will move files in to a directory of the same name as the file

   \\\\
           void foldersFrame::OnButton2Click(wxCommandEvent& event)
            {
                wxFileName mkr;
                StaticText1->SetLabel(_("0"));
                wxString fn;
                wxString newf;
                wxDir *dir=new wxDir(TextCtrl1->GetLabel());
                bool cont = dir->GetFirst(&fn);
                while (cont)
                {
                    int mm=fn.Find('.',true);
                    newf=fn.Mid(0,mm);
                    if(! mkr.DirExists(dir->GetName()+_("\\")+fn)){
                        StaticText2->SetLabel(_("copying  ")+fn);
                        if (! mkr.DirExists(dir->GetName()+_("\\")+newf)){
                            mkr.Mkdir(dir->GetName()+_("\\")+newf);
                            if (wxCopyFile(dir->GetName()+_("\\")+fn,dir->GetName()+_("\\")+newf+_("\\")+fn)){
                                wxRemoveFile(dir->GetName()+_("\\")+fn);
                            }
                            newf=StaticText1->GetLabel();
                            long d1;
                            if(!newf.ToLong(&d1));
                            d1+=1;
                            StaticText1->SetLabel(wxString::Format(wxT("%i"),d1));
                        }
                    }
                    cont = dir->GetNext(&fn);
                }
                wxSafeShowMessage(_("Message"),_("Finished"));
            }

But the code i have written seem to be very inefficient.It takes a lot of time to move files,and the window doesn’t respond while copying.Someone please help me rewrite it..!!!!

Answer 1

You have two standard ways to implement a long running task.

First one, and by far the best, is to perform this task in a separate background thread. You can update the state of the GUI controls in the main thread by posting wxThreadEvent containing the progress data to the main window easily. The only complication — but a pretty important one — in this case is to handle closing the window/application termination/thread exit correctly.

Second one, which could do in a pinch, is to do the task in wxEVT_IDLE handler piece by piece and call wxIdleEvent::RequestMore() after each step. This is not as responsive as using a separate thread because you still block the event handling during the handler execution and the code needs to be rewritten in a different way to be able to resume from where it left off.

Using wxYield() is a pretty bad idea and should be avoided unless no other solution can be implemented.