[vbox-dev] VBox 4.3 Beta - SDK Download

Thu Sep 26 19:29:58 GMT 2013

Hi Klaus,

So far so good, I can't find anything wrong in my tests. They are quite
basic for now, but I'll keep on testing and see if something comes up.
The medium variant list instead of an integer/long is definitly a very nice
change. Same for the USB controllers list. Quite neat now!

Taking on your API feedback offer, I do have few questions/remarks on the
API in general, and for the Java part :

If I want to get a IMedium object of a known medium, I have two
possiblities :
1. I loop through 3 different arrays to find a specific value/UUID
2. I have to use the IVirtualbox->openMedium() method, but then I must know
the medium type (floppy, cd/dvd, hard disk)

Few questions about this :
- Shouldn't there be a findMedium() method, just like for a VM, using
either the path or the UUID? Else we have to build this "cache" ourselves.
- Wouldn't be a more appropriate to "auto-detect" the medium type and give
the options to simply open a file given a specific path? But I guess that's
more a matter of opinioin which one is "best". But I would like to see both
methods maybe.
- Why not a single array?

Still about mediums, I see that I cannot create a medium under the size of
2MB. I must pass a value no less than 2048000 to
IMedium->createBaseStorage(size,variant).
No mention of this anywhere in the API, and I get a cryptic error (invalid
parameters) when I try. In retrospec, it is the proper error, but not
really when you discover this limitation.
I guess 2MB is a "physical" limitation (minimum sectors in a disk?) or is a
Virtualbox one?

I would like to provide a "Guest reboot" option, that would send a command
to reboot the guest, and check when the VM has reseted, but there is no
such event in the API.
I would like to send the reboot command to the guest (via the guest
properties per exemple, or other) and either wait for this event, or a
timeout and force the reboot by powering off the VM then restarting it.
It would very much make sense to send a machine event telling us the VM has
rebooted. It should be possible since you actually get a line in the VM log
about the VM reseting and the BIOS kicking in.
That would be a nice addition I think.

Specific to the Java API, I am interesting into gettnig the error code for
any VBoxException to rethrow a specific custom exception, but no such
method is present.
The only thing I can do is to parse the text message for the error number,
if it is included.
This is not very "clean" and could break if you decide to change the format
of error messages. Is there a way to get this error code from the
VBoxException somewhere, or not possible as of now?

More questions to come later I am sure. Thank you for your time already!

Best regards,
Max

On 21 September 2013 22:27, Maxime Dor <maxime.dor at altherian.org> wrote:

> Oops, a bit too trigger happy hehe...
> I got it, thank you!
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Frank Mehnert [mailto:frank.mehnert at oracle.com]
> Sent: 21 September 2013 07:58
> To: vbox-dev at virtualbox.org
> Subject: Re: [vbox-dev] VBox 4.3 Beta - SDK Download
>
> Maxime,
>
> the SDK upload was just not yet completed. Please have a look at the
> download directory now.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Frank
>
> On Saturday 21 September 2013 02:29:15 Maxime Dor wrote:
> > Hello Klaus;
> >
> > You already changed all the points I had "an issue" with in the 4.2
> > API, so once I use the 4.3 API further, I  can let you know my
> > impressions and any ideas.
> >
> > Could you give me a link to the SDK for BETA3 as well please? None was
> > uploaded. Thank you!
> >
> > On 18 September 2013 20:30, Klaus Espenlaub
> <klaus.espenlaub at oracle.com>wrote:
> > > Hi Max,
> > >
> > > On 16.09.2013 23:49, Maxime Dor wrote:
> > >> Hi Klaus,
> > >>
> > >> Just wanted to let you know that so far, everything is very easy
> > >> and that except for the actual API changes, which are very limited
> > >> from my PoV, all the code is pretty much plug & play.
> > >> I'll run all my unit tests once I have adapted the changes you made
> > >> and see how it goes, but I don't fear.
> > >>
> > >> I like when it's easy like this :) And I like the nice little
> > >> tweaks you've made - definitly makes more sense.
> > >
> > > We try not to break things just to break them... and let us know if
> > > you have any ideas for improving the API usability. Any suggestions
> > > will be reviewed, and we have a list of changes we want to do in 4.4
> > > already (and we can't do them now because of lack of developer time).
> > >
> > > There will be a few more very minor changes coming in the next beta,
> > > which you'll probably call boring as I can't imagine that any code
> > > is using the affected methods (mostly not yet implemented stuff
> > > which we might be able to find time to implement in some 4.3.x).
> > >
> > > Klaus
> > >
> > >> On 12 September 2013 17:46, Klaus Espenlaub
> > >> <klaus.espenlaub at oracle.com <mailto:klaus.espenlaub@**oracle.com
> > >> <klaus.espenlaub at oracle.com>>>
> > >>
> > >> wrote:
> > >>     Hi Max,
> > >>
> > >>     On 12.09.2013 16:58, Maxime Dor wrote:
> > >>      > Hello,
> > >>      >
> > >>      > Would it possible to get a SDK zip like with 4.2.x build so I
> can
> > >>      > already test my code against 4.3 and already prepare what needs
> > >>      > to
> > >>
> > >> be
> > >>
> > >>      > changed?
> > >>
> > >>     Was an oversight... 4.3.0_BETA1 had it, but it's not yet there for
> > >>     4.3.0_BETA2 (and there were API changes, some more to come). Will
> be
> > >>     fixed soon, and appear in the expected place on
> > >>
> http://download.virtualbox.**org/virtualbox/4.3.0_BETA2/<http://down
> > >>     load.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.3.0_BETA2/>
> > >>
> > >>     Klaus
> > >>
> > >>      > Thank you.
> > >>      >
> > >>      > Best regards,
> > >>      > Max
>
> --
> Dr.-Ing. Frank Mehnert | Software Development Director, VirtualBox ORACLE
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