Wringing Yet More Speed from MIDAS.DLL

12 Nov 2009 in Delphi | 6 comments

Cameron Hart at Flow Software has just blogged about a change he identified in MIDAS.DLL to significantly improve the performance (and capacity) of client data sets when handling large volumes of records and BLOB fields.  Basically he seems to have taken the work previously done by Andreas Hausladen and applied it to BLOB’s.

The performance improvements were hugely significant, but Cameron is quite open about the fact that he’s primarily a Delphi developer, and so is interested in any comments or observations from those perhaps more familiar with C/C++ and especially anyone more intimately familiar with the inner workings of the MIDAS.DLL that might be able to spot any issues in his changes that perhaps aren’t apparent to him.

He’s published the changes he made on the blog post.  The formatting of the code isn’t great thanks to using a hosted installation of WordPress which presumably doesn’t allow syntax highlighting plugins to be installed, so you might want to copy/paste his code into a more C/C++ friendly editor for detailed perusal.

In the interests of full disclosure I should mention that Flow Software is my “Daily Planet”.

Tags: , ,

6 comments

  1. Home’s avatar

    Home on 13 Nov 2009 at 03:17

    Do you have midas.dll (or link to) to use with application compiled by Delphi 7

  2. Alexandre Machado’s avatar

    Alexandre Machado on 13 Nov 2009 at 11:32

    I don’t have D2010, but, is there a way to recompile MidasLib.dcu with those modifications?
    Since D6 I don’t use Midas.dll anymore, only MidasLib.dcu linked to the executable.

  3. Michael’s avatar

    Michael on 13 Nov 2009 at 23:17

    Would be fine if sbdy could compile the DLL and DCU files for all (still) important IDEs out there.
    I’m in need of at least Turbo Delphi Pro and D2009 – Delphi 7 would be perfect, too.

    1. Jolyon Smith’s avatar

      Jolyon Smith on 14 Nov 2009 at 06:26

      @Home, Alexander and Michael:

      Apart from not being sure whether the DLL as supplied in Delphi 2010 would even be compatible with much earlier versions of Delphi, we’re definitely not sure as to the legality of distributing a modified version of the DLL. The best thing would be to let Embarcadero know that you would appreciate seeing these changes incorporated in the official version.

      They would also be best placed to advise on any potential issues with using a current MIDAS DLL with an older Delphi application.

  4. Michael’s avatar

    Michael on 16 Nov 2009 at 22:10

    Jolyon,

    I guess Embarcadero would not even read my request to release a new Midas lib for Delphi versions below D2010.

    Fact is still and will ever be, after the yearly release of a new Delphi version, the old ones died for Embarcadero – that’s it!

  5. David’s avatar

    David on 04 Dec 2009 at 16:34

    Excellent – thanks for pointing that out Jolyon.

Comments are now closed.