Cruisecontrol usage

Cruisecontrol dashboard can be accessed at the location: http://10.177.135.55:8080/dashboard/tab/dashboard
A reference for creating the config.xml file, which you will need soon, is present at this location:http://cruisecontrol.sourceforge.net/main/configxml.html

You can add a project for automated builds into CC by doing the following steps:

1. Add a project tag to the C:\CruiseControl\config.xml file. There are two types of builds that you may configure:
2a. Build that takes place within a certain interval i.e. hourly build. This usually checks that code checked in by various developers are compiling.
2b. Build that takes place once everyday at the night. This usually checks that the code in the source control compiles and deploys on the appserver. You may run the tests too in this build and build the project site which maven does very well.
2. Checkout the project in the C:\CruiseControl\projects folder of that machine. Yes, you need to manually check out the project in the projects folder for the first time. Later, CC does the updates. But, first, check #3.
3. It is a good idea to have two folders like this: C:\CruiseControl\projects\hourly and C:\CruiseControl\projects\nightly in which you check out the projects.
4. For the project tag of the type in 2a use the following template(The string between ##, including the hashes, is to be replaced with the suitable string):
<project name="#project-name#">
<listeners>
<currentbuildstatuslistener file="logs/#project-name#/status.txt"/>
</listeners>

<bootstrappers>
<!-- This is a sample for subversion source control. This command is different for different source controls. Add as many paths as you want updated.-->
<svnbootstrapper localWorkingCopy="projects/hourly/#the path to the checked out project where svn update needs to take place#" username="#username#" password="#password#"/>
</bootstrappers>

<!--This tag is to specify the paths that you want CC to track changes made in. i.e. If there is any change of a file in these paths a build will be triggered.-->
<modificationset quietperiod="30" >
<!--Again, this is for subversion source control. Add as many paths as you want to track.-->
<svn localWorkingCopy="projects/hourly/#the path to the checked out project where you want CC to detect changes for a build to take place#" username="#username#" password="#password#"/>
</modificationset>

<!--This tag species that changes must be checked every one hour. If changes are detected, then the commands specified must be run, here it is a maven command.-->
<schedule interval="3600">
<!--The maven command to run if a build must take place. This could be an ant command too. Check the CC reference for the right syntax.-->
<maven2 mvnhome="${mvn.home}" pomfile="projects/hourly/#the path to the build file in the checked out project.#" goal="clean install" flags="-e"/>
</schedule>

<publishers>
<currentbuildstatuspublisher file="logs/#project-name#/status.txt"/>
<email mailhost="mail.oracle.com" returnaddress="#build-manager#@oracle.com" buildresultsurl="http://10.177.135.55:8080/buildresults/#project-name#" reportsuccess="never">
<failure address="#dev-team-email-id(s)#@oracle.com"/>

</email>
</publishers>
</project>

5. For the project tag of the type in 2b use the following template(The string between ##, including the hashes, is to be replaced with the suitable string):
<project name="#project-name#">
<listeners>
<currentbuildstatuslistener file="logs/#project-name#/status.txt"/>
</listeners>

<bootstrappers>
<!-- This is a sample for subversion source control. This command is different for different source controls. Add as many paths as you want updated.-->
<svnbootstrapper localWorkingCopy="projects/hourly/#the path to the checked out project where svn update needs to take place#" username="#username#" password="#password#"/>
</bootstrappers>

<!--This tag is to specify the paths that you want CC to track changes made in. i.e. If there is any change of a file in these paths a build will be triggered.-->
<modificationset>
<!--Again, this is for subversion source control. Add as many paths as you want to track.-->
<svn localWorkingCopy="projects/nightly/#the path to the checked out project where you want CC to detect changes for a build to take place#" username="#username#" password="#password#"/>
</modificationset>

<!--This tag species that there is no schedule. So, the time to build is taken from the command. Here, it is 8pm everyday.-->
<schedule>
<!--The maven command to run if a build must take place. This could be an ant command too. Check the CC reference for the right syntax.-->
<maven2 mvnhome="${mvn.home}" time="2000" pomfile="projects/nightly/#the path to the build file in the checked out project.#" goal="clean install" flags="-e"/>
</schedule>

<publishers>
<currentbuildstatuspublisher file="logs/#project-name#/status.txt"/>
<email mailhost="mail.oracle.com" returnaddress="#build-manager#@oracle.com" buildresultsurl="http://10.177.135.55:8080/buildresults/#project-name#" reportsuccess="never">
<failure address="#dev-team-email-id(s)#@oracle.com"/>

</email>
</publishers>
</project>
6. After this step one can go to the CC dashboard and monitor the project builds as well as trigger builds manually.

Oracle Coherence learnings, so far...Part 2

1 . If you want to listen to events like when a new object is inserted in the coherence cache(CC) or when an object is deleted from CC or when an object in CC is updated do it like this folks:
NamedCache cache = CacheFactory.getCache("person");
cache.addMapListener(new MapListener() {

public void entryInserted(MapEvent mapEvent) {
//Code when some new object is inserted into cache
}

public void entryUpdated(MapEvent mapEvent) {
Object key = mapEvent.getKey();
Object oldVal = mapEvent.getOldValue();
Object val = mapEvent.getNewValue();
System.out.println("Old value:"+oldVal+", New value being added:"+val);
}

public void entryDeleted(MapEvent mapEvent) {
//Code when some an object is deleted into cache
}
});

2. Up until now we have just done put and get of data into the cache. I am sure, by now, someone is craving to ask what about concurrency. If we want to control concurrency to the data we have the option to lock and unlock keys. But there is a better way to do this: Entry Processes are agents that perform processing against entries, and will carry this out directly where the data is being held. The sort of processing you can carry out may change the data, e.g. create, update or remove or may just perform calculations on the data. Entry processors that work against the same key will be logically queued. This means that you can achieve lock-free (high performance) processing. This is called in-line processing of data. Custom entry processes may be written in the following way:
Class RaiseSalary extents AbstractProcessor {
...
public Object process (Entry entry) {
Employee emp = (Employee)entry.getValue();
emp.setSalary(emp.getSalary() * 1.10);
entry.setValue(emp);
return null;
}
To invoke this you then do the following:
empCache.invokeAll(AlwaysFilter.INSTANCE, new RaiseSalary());

3. Up until now, we've seen simple keys. What if when we want to have a composite key like the id and the version number. Then it is a good idea to wrap all the member elements that form a composite key into an inner class and call it "public static class Key implements ExternalizableLite". A sample key implementation may look like this:
public static class Key implements ExternalizableLite {

// lets define a key of id and version
private int id;
private int version;

public Key() {
//for serializble
}

public Key(int id, int version) {
this.id = id;
this.version = version;
}

public Key(Person p) {
this.id = p.getId();
this.version = 1; // default to version 1
}

public void writeExternal(DataOutput dataOutput) throws IOException {
ExternalizableHelper.writeInt(dataOutput, this.id);
ExternalizableHelper.writeInt(dataOutput, this.version);
}

public void readExternal(DataInput dataInput) throws IOException {
this.id = ExternalizableHelper.readInt(dataInput);
this.version = ExternalizableHelper.readInt(dataInput);
}

@Override
public boolean equals(Object object) {
...
}

@Override
public int hashCode() {
final int PRIME = 37;
int result = 1;
return result;
}
}
As a next step, we can target for efficiencies of partitioning. That is, in the cluster of caches, we can target for similar objects to be in the same cache instance. For this the inner class can implement KeyAssociation and override the method getAssociatedKey(). With this, for instance, if this method returns the same surname then those persons are placed in the same cache instance.

Oracle Coherence learnings, so far...Part 1

I've been going thru a lab which is dealing with a set of new functions in each chapter. Here are my learnings so far:

1.Definition: Oracle Coherence is an in-memory data grid solution that enables organizations to predictably scale mission-critical applications by providing fast access to frequently used data.

2. The standard way of putting and getting data into cache:
NamedCache cache = CacheFactory.getCache("person");
Person p1 = new Person(2, "Jade", "Goody", "London, 38", 36, Person.FEMALE);
cache.put(p1.getId(), p1);
Person p2 = (Person)cache.get(1);

3. The custom objects that you put into coherence cache must be atleast Serializable. If you want a more efficient way then implement com.tangosol.io.ExternalizableLite. This will require you to implement two methods too but mashalling and unmarshalling of objects become very efficient.

4. To do bulk upload of data into the in-memory cache, you would want to do it efficiently like this:

public static void bulkLoad(NamedCache cache, Connection conn)
 {
 Statement s;
 ResultSet rs;
 Map       buffer = new HashMap();

 try
     {
     int count = 0;
     s = conn.createStatement();
     rs = s.executeQuery("select key, value from table");
     while (rs.next())
         {
         Integer key   = new Integer(rs.getInt(1));
         String  value = rs.getString(2);
         buffer.put(key, value);

         // this loads 1000 items at a time into the cache
            if ((count++ % 1000) == 0)
             {
             cache.putAll(buffer);
             buffer.clear();
             }
         }
     if (!buffer.isEmpty())
         {
         cache.putAll(buffer);
         }
     ...
     }
 catch (SQLException e)
     {...}
 }

5. To carry-out efficient processing of filtered results you may want to do this instead of the regular iterator stuff:

public static void performQuery()
 {
 NamedCache c = CacheFactory.getCache("test");

 // Search for entries that start with 'c'
    Filter query = new LikeFilter(IdentityExtractor.INSTANCE, "c%", '\\', true);

 // Perform query, return keys of entries that match
    Set keys = c.keySet(query);

 // The amount of objects to process at a time
    final int BUFFER_SIZE = 100;

 // Object buffer
    Set buffer = new HashSet(BUFFER_SIZE);

 for (Iterator i = keys.iterator(); i.hasNext();)
     {
     buffer.add(i.next());

     if (buffer.size() >= BUFFER_SIZE)
         {
         // Bulk load BUFFER_SIZE number of objects from cache
            Map entries = c.getAll(buffer);

         // Process each entry
            process(entries);

         // Done processing these keys, clear buffer
            buffer.clear();
         }
     }
 // Handle the last partial chunk (if any)
    if (!buffer.isEmpty())
     {
     process(c.getAll(buffer));
     }
 }

6. This is how filtering works:
Set malesOver35 = cache.entrySet(
new AndFilter(new EqualsFilter("getGender", Person.MALE),
new GreaterEqualsFilter("getAge", 35)));

7. This is how aggregation works:
Double avgAgeMales =
(Double)cache.aggregate(new EqualsFilter("getGender", Person.MALE),
new DoubleAverage("getAge"));

8. Entry Processes are agents that perform processing against entries, and will carry this out directly where the data is being held. The sort of processing you can carry out may change the data, e.g. create, update or remove or may just perform calculations on the data. Entry processors that work against the same key will be logically queued. This means that you can achieve lock-free (high performance) processing. A small example is as follows:
Class RaiseSalary extents AbstractProcessor {
...
public Object process (Entry entry) {
Employee emp = (Employee)entry.getValue();
emp.setSalary(emp.getSalary() * 1.10);
entry.setValue(emp);
return null;
}
To invoke this you then do the following:
empCache.invokeAll(AlwaysFilter.INSTANCE, new RaiseSalary());

Maven practice

- Unzip the maven installable and show the settings.xml. Set the repository folder to the repo in the maven training area. Also uncomment the proxy and change settings.

- Then run the create archetype command.
mvn archetype:create -DartifactId=test -DgroupId=sample.oracle.toplink

- Display the folder that is generated. Run the "mvn install" command to display how build, packaging and installing is done.

- Copy the resulting pom to SampleApp folder and make changes to artifactId, packaging(to pom), add modules like this:
<modules>
<module>Model</module>
<module>ViewController</module>
</modules>

- Copy pom to Model and ViewController and do similar things. Apply the parent tag these pom files:
<parent>
<groupId>sample.oracle.toplink</groupId>
<artifactId>TestApp</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<relativePath>..</relativePath>
</parent>
Change the artifact id, name, packaging and remove the dependencies for now.
- In pom.xml of Model & ViewController put in the build tag with the proper source directory because the project is a jdev project.
<build>
<sourceDirectory>src</sourceDirectory>
</build>
- Now compile with the command "mvn compile" and you should get compile errors. Firstly, because the wrong jdk is being used. Correct it by putting the following in both pom files:
<build>
<sourceDirectory>src</sourceDirectory>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<source>1.5</source>
<target>1.5</target>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
- Now, to the pom.xml of Model & ViewController add resource folder and inclusion details in the build tag to the pom file which may look like this:
<resources>
<resource>
<directory>src</directory>
<includes>
<include>**/*.gif</include>
<include>**/*.jpg</include>
<include>**/*.jpeg</include>
<include>**/*.png</include>
<include>**/*.properties</include>
<include>**/*.xml</include>
<include>**/*-apf.xml</include>
<include>**/*.ejx</include>
<include>**/*.xcfg</include>
<include>**/*.cpx</include>
<include>**/*.dcx</include>
<include>**/*.wsdl</include>
<include>**/*.ini</include>
<include>**/*.tld</include>
<include>**/*.tag</include>
<include>**/*.jpx</include>
<include>**/*.properties</include>
</includes>
</resource>
</resources>

- Now to install dependent jars of oracle into the local repo.
<use utility>
- Add dependencies to the pom file.
- Do the same to the web project. But it requires different treatment. Firstly, add the Model project as a dependency to this project. That is add a dependency like this:
<dependency>
<groupId>sample.oracle.toplink</groupId>
<artifactId>Model</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
</dependency>
Then add the following plugin so that the packaging that takes place is of war type:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<webappDirectory>public_html</webappDirectory>
<archive>
<manifest>
<addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
</manifest>
</archive>
</configuration>
</plugin>
- Now to create an ear file one must create a new folder called ear in the parent folder that contains the Model and ViewController project. This will be like a new maven project but only dealing with creation of the ear file. Copy the pom file created in the first stages to this folder and do the following changes:
- Add the parent tag like before. Make changes to the artifactId, name and packaging(it must be ear now).
- Add the war project as a dependency. It should look like this:
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>sample.oracle.toplink</groupId>
<artifactId>UI</artifactId>
<version>10.1.3.3</version>
<type>war</type>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>sample.oracle.toplink</groupId>
<artifactId>Model</artifactId>
<version>10.1.3.3</version>
<type>ejb</type>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
- Add a build tag like this to be able to build an ear file:
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-ear-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<displayName>TestApp</displayName>
<description>Test Application</description>
<modules>
<ejbModule>
<groupId>sample.oracle.toplink</groupId>
<artifactId>Model</artifactId>
</ejbModule>
<webModule>
<groupId>sample.oracle.toplink</groupId>
<artifactId>UI</artifactId>
<contextRoot>/test</contextRoot>
</webModule>
</modules>
<earSourceExcludes>*.jar</earSourceExcludes>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
- This should create an ear file. But when you try to deploy the ear file in the oc4j server, you will start getting errors about a few classes not found. These were the jars that got left out during installation of jars in the local repo because the xml file didn't have mappings for a few libraries. I still haven't been able to find the file that contains all mappings for libraries. These jars you will have to manually install and put in pom as dependencies. For now, the libs that are'nt available are open source ones. These are the easiest to use. You just define them as dependency, they will be automatically installed in the local repo.
- Make the folders src/main/resources/META-INF and put the orion-application.xml file into it, which you get from building an ear file from the jdeveloper. (It is always advisable to make a war deployment profile in jdeveloper, before going ahead with this exercise. Also, try deploying it on a standalone OC4J instance and see it running.) You will also need to add this to the pom.xml so that this file is dropped in the right place before packaging(note the resources tag only).
<build>
<resources>
<resource>
<directory>src/main/resources</directory>
<targetPath>../${project.artifactId}-${project.version}</targetPath>
</resource>
</resources>
<plugins>

Developing an ADF/Faces-Toplink application

In this post I'd like to address a few common issues that developers face while creating an ADF/Faces and Toplink application. For such an application, usually this is the flow of steps:

1. This is assuming the usage of JDeveloper for development.
   
2. Create an application with two projects. One for model(which will contain toplink objects) and one for the UserInterface.
3. First, in the model project, start by creating "Java objects from tables". Make the toplink POJOs Serializable. Create the named toplink queries(find, update and insert) methods. Create the Facade Session bean to facade the named queries. Then create a DataControl out of the Session Bean. Mind you, this Datacontrol is good as long as things work by dragging and dropping into the JSF pages.
4. Now, create the JSF pages in the UI project. The best way to do this is by going to the Overview window of the faces-config.xml file. Here you drop the jsf pages and navigations. Then you double-click on the jsf pages and create the actual jsf jsp pages.
5. Sometimes when you'd like to call the facade session bean methods on your own then you have the job of looking it up. But a few pointers first, that I have noticed: Always make the facade session bean implement the Remote interface(implementing only Local is logical but doesn't work :( ), following is how the SessionBean looks like:
   

@Stateless(name="SessionEJB1")
public class SessionEJB1Bean implements SessionEJB1, SessionEJB1Local {

and the following is the code to lookup the session bean in JDev 10.1.3.2/3:

InitialContext ctx=new InitialContext();
Object o = ctx.lookup("SessionEJB1");
SessionEJB1 ejb = (SessionEJB1)PortableRemoteObject.narrow(o, SessionEJB1.class);
return ejb;


6. One big challenge in such applications is the creation of new objects or in other words new rows in a table, how would you handle the new ID to be assigned. If you are using Oracle database(I do not experience with other databases) the best way to handle assignment of new IDs is to use native sequencing. In the top-level of the toplink mapping set the sequencing to use "Native sequencing". Obviously, you will need to have sequences created in the database for the tables in which new rows are going to be created. In the toplink mapping window go to the details of a table and set the sequencing information by using the sequence name you created for that table in the database. That's it! You will not have to set the ID parameter in the new java object before persisting it. The method to use is the persistEntity(Object) method in the facade session bean. It returns the persisted object which contains the newly assigned ID. Cool!
   

More JSF

Inverting the bean value requires the ! (or not) operator:
<h:inputtext rendered="#{!bean.hide}">

You can concatenate plain strings and value binding expressions, simply by placing them next to each other. Consider, for example,
<h:outputtext value="#{messages.greeting}, #{user.name}!">

Here is a typical use of a method binding expression.
<h:commandbutton action="#{user.checkPassword}">


The h:dataTable tag iterates over data to create an HTML table. Here's how you use it:
<h:datatable value="#{items}" var="item"><h:datatable value="#{items}" var="item">
The value attribute represents the data over which h:dataTable iterates; that data must be one of the following:

• an array

• an instance of java.util.List

• an instance of java.sql.ResultSet

• an instance of javax.servlet.jsp.jstl.sql.Result

• an instance of javax.faces.model.DataModel

Java Server Faces - obtaining value binding in java

FacesContext context = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();

ValueBinding binding = context.getApplication().createValueBinding("#{user.name}");

String name = (String) binding.getValue(context);