Software Engineering

Recursive search on the filesystem for the content of a log-file

2010-02-17T09:08:00.004+01:00

I had the following problem lately:

On a test server I was looking for a log-file on the installation path and/or one of its sub-folders with some information about a "session timeout".

I didn't know the the log-files name, but new, that it had the extension ".log". I also didn't know which exception was was creating the entry. All I had, was the string "session timeout".

With the following Groovy script I could find all the log-files containing the string "session timeout" and from there it was easy to identify the log-file.


def dir = 'C:/some_installation_folder'
def fileExtension = '.log'
def searchString = 'session timeout'

new File(dir).eachFileRecurse() { f ->
    if (f.directory) {
        def p = ~/.*\${fileExtension}/
        f.eachFileMatch(p) { log ->
            def exceptions = []

            log.eachLine { ln ->
                if (ln =~ '.*' + searchString + '.*') {
                    exceptions << "${ln}"
                }
            }

            if (!exceptions.empty) {
                println log
                exceptions.each{println "    $it"}
            }
        }
    }
}

Enjoy! :)

Date Format Fix in Excel 2003

2010-01-19T11:44:00.010+01:00

Due to an issue in Excel 2003, sometime the date formats are not updated in the cells, which leads to the problem, that a cell shows a date but is not read as a date by macros and formulas.

You could go through each cell, press 'F2' and 'Enter' and Excel would finally identify the content of the cell as a date. But this you would do manually and not by script.

With the following VBA script for Excel, the format can be updated:


Sub UpdateColumnFormat()

    Dim usedRangeOfRows As Integer
    usedRangeOfRows = ActiveSheet.UsedRange.Rows.Count
    
    'Date
    Columns("A:A").Select
    Dim e As Range
    Dim currentValueE As Date
    For Each e In Range("A2:A" & usedRangeOfRows).Cells
        e.Select
        currentValueE = ActiveCell.Value
        ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = currentValueE
    Next
    
End Sub

This problem occurs regularly, when I copy data from one sheet to another by VBA scripts.

With the above script, I could fix (at least work around it) this issue.

Enjoy :)

"Create List..." in Excel 2003 with VBA

2010-01-18T17:30:00.002+01:00

While working on data within Excel with VBA, I like to use dynamic lists to address the data and eventually to give it a name.

To create a list, the same one as you would do manually by calling "Create List..." from the context menu, you can execute the VBA script below.


Private Sub CreateList()

    Range("A1").Select
    
    Range(Selection, Selection.End(xlDown)).Select
    Range(Selection, Selection.End(xlToRight)).Select
    
    Dim NumberOfColumns As Integer
    Dim NumberOfRows As Integer
    Dim StartCell As Range
    Dim EndCell As Range
    
    NumberOfColumns = ActiveSheet.UsedRange.Columns.Count
    NumberOfRows = ActiveSheet.UsedRange.Rows.Count
    
    Set StartCell = Cells(1, 1)
    Set EndCell = Cells(NumberOfRows, NumberOfColumns)
    
    Dim DataRange As Range
    Set DataRange = Range(StartCell, EndCell)
    
    ActiveSheet.ListObjects.Add(xlSrcRange, DataRange, , xlYes).Name = "List1"
    Range(StartCell, EndCell).Select
    ActiveWorkbook.Names.Add Name:="Data", RefersToR1C1:=DataRange
    Range("Data").Select

End Sub

I also give the list the name "Data", which I do to access the data by name afterwords, but this is not required to create the list.

Enjoy :)

Read File Properties with Excel VBA

2009-09-21T22:36:00.004+02:00

The VBA script for Excel below will read the 'File Version' from the file properties and will read file name and its version each into a column in a Excel sheet.


Sub getFileProductVersion()

   Dim objShell  As Shell
   Dim objFolder As Folder
   Dim objFolderItems As FolderItems
   Dim objFolderItem As FolderItem
   Dim numberOfFiles As Long
   Dim i As Integer
   Dim j As Integer

   Set objShell = New Shell
   Set objFolder = objShell.Namespace("C:\Temp\files")

   If (Not objFolder Is Nothing) Then
       Set objFolderItems = objFolder.Items()
       numberOfFiles = objFolderItems.Count
       Range("A1").Select

       For i = 0 To numberOfFiles - 1
           Set objFolderItem = objFolderItems.Item(i)
           ActiveCell.Offset(i, 0) = objFolderItem.Name
           ActiveCell.Offset(i, 1) = objFolder.GetDetailsOf(objFolderItem, 39)
       Next i

   End If

   Set objFolder = Nothing
   Set objShell = Nothing

End Sub

Enjoy :)

How to specify the browser that should be used in WebTest

2009-09-21T21:43:00.018+02:00

In WebTest it is possible to define which browser shall be simulated. Currently WebTest support the following browsers:

Firefox3 (or FF3)
Firefox2 (or FF2)
InternetExplorer6 (or IE6)
InternetExplorer7 (or IE7)

To get a more detailed list, have a look at the WebTest config page (http://webtest.canoo.com/webtest/manual/config.html).

As you can see in the simple example below, it is very easy to define the simulated browser for your test:



   
      
          

          'Here goes your test code...'

This example is an extract from a browser test of the self test suite of WebTest. For more details, have a look a the self test suite (https://svn.canoo.com/trunk/webtest/selftests/).

Enjoy :)

How to create a WebTest project in less than a minute

2009-08-12T22:00:00.007+02:00

Assuming you have WebTest installed you can create a WebTest project in less than a minute:

Go to the directory where you want to create the WebTest project

E.g.:


C:\projects

Call the createProject task and provide a name for the project, e.g. myWebTestProject


C:\projects>ant -f %WEBTEST_HOME%\webtest.xml wt.createProject

Change to the project directory


C:\projects>cd myWebTestProject

Call WebTest


C:\projects\myWebTestProject>webtest

Done :)

Functional Testing for Joomla! with WebTest

2009-08-11T20:03:00.006+02:00

Joomla! is a very popular open-source CMS based on PHP. It is simple to use and makes creating and maintaining Web sites easy for everyone, from total beginners setting up their first site to IT professionals managing enterprise installations.

Like many other projects (not only open-source projects) testing is not the most popular subject. However, testing is very crucial for every project to be able to grow and handle complexity within the project.

Functional testing is one aspect of testing which can focus on the users perspective of using an application.

I started a functional test suite for Joomla! with Canoo WebTest, an open-source tool for automated testing of web applications in a very effective way.

If you would like to have a look at the current state of the work, see here:

http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/scmsvn/?action=browse&path=%2Ftesting%2Ftrunk%2Ffunctionaltest%2Fwebtest%2F

Some initial documentation can be found here:

http://docs.joomla.org/Testing_Joomla!_With_WebTest

Enjoy :)

The Screencast Blog

2007-12-30T09:31:00.001+01:00

Today I found the screencast blog, which provides a huge number of screencast which mostly show Eclipse features.

Have a look, it's really interesting:

The Screencast Blog

Enjoy!

Regards,
Tomi

Groovy and Grails Posts & Links

2007-12-06T08:13:00.002+01:00

Some interesting posts & links:

Enjoy :)

Regards,
Tomi

WebTest Screencast: Data Driven WebTest

2007-11-13T09:54:00.002+01:00

We finally made it :)

Marc Guillemot (http://mguillem.wordpress.com/) and I published the new WebTest (http://webtest.canoo.com/) screencast showing Data Driven WebTest based on Google Calculations.

You can find the screencast here:

http://opensource.basehaus.com/webtest/screencasts/data-driven-webtest.htm

New screencasts will follow soon...

Enjoy!

Kind regards,
Tomi

Groovy Posts & Links

2007-11-06T09:07:00.001+01:00

I'm following the Groovy (http://groovy.codehaus.org/) posts and links on http://www.dzone.com/ and http://del.icio.us/. It is amazing, how the number of posts and saved URL's increased over the last couple months.

If you would like to have a look at these, check the following links...

dzone

http://www.dzone.com/links/search.html?query=groovy&x=0&y=0

del.cio.us

Enjoy reading!

Regards,
Tomi

WebTest vs. Selenium

2007-10-29T11:05:00.002+01:00

Marc Guillemot compares the features of two popular open source testing tools: WebTest and Selenium!

A must read post! Very interesting!

[..] The maintainability of automated tests depends primarily on the skills of the test authors, but different tools have different features that impact their efficiency. This blog post compares the features of two open source automated web testing tools: Canoo WebTest and Selenium.

http://mguillem.wordpress.com/2007/10/29/webtest-vs-selenium-webtest-wins-13-5/

Enjoy!

Regards,
Tomi

WebTest Screencast: New cast on its way...

2007-09-10T23:11:00.001+02:00

Tonight we (Marc Guillemot and myself) were working on a new screencast for WebTest. The new cast will be about data driven web testing.

I'll try to bring the cast online till end of the week, or at least a first beta version :) As soon as I have it published, I'll post a new blog entry.

Regards,
Tomi

WebTest Screencast: Creating a first WebTest project

2007-08-22T07:53:00.002+02:00

Marc Guillemot (http://mguillem.wordpress.com/) and myself are working on some screencasts to show WebTest capabilities. The first screencast has been announced on the WebTest mailing list:

http://lists.canoo.com/pipermail/webtest/2007q3/008586.html

and can be found here:

http://opensource.basehaus.com/webtest/screencasts/creating-a-first-webtest-project.htm

We are looking forward to publish a couple more screencasts within the next few months. If there are special features you would like to see in the upcoming screencast, let me know :)

Enjoy!

Regards,
Tomi

Dealing with critics?

2007-08-08T14:00:00.001+02:00

There is an interesting post on Marc Guillemot's blog:

http://mguillem.wordpress.com/2007/07/31/xpath-power-2-detect-lack-of-experience/

He's blog entry can be understood in a way, that the lack of XPath can be associated to the lack of test automation experience. If this relation is correct or not is not as interesting as the reaction which has raised based on his entry.

I'm very surprised, how personal this was taken, especially the comment of Neil: http://mguillem.wordpress.com/2007/07/31/xpath-power-2-detect-lack-of-experience/#comment-16. I would have expected more distance to such a statement and more tolerance.

My understanding of Marc's statement is, that the better an XPath expression is (better in the sense of robust), the better the tests are which might be based on the XPath expression. The first XPath statement Marc is quoting:

/html/body/table[2]/tbody/tr/td[2]/table[2]/tbody/tr/td/div/ul[1]/li[4]
from http://agiletesting.blogspot.com/2006/01/useful-tools-for-writing-selenium.html

is not robust at all. If there a small change in the used tables or additional items in the lists, the test will break. If there is a relationship between robust and better, that this statement is not prefered and in this sense, I can understand the statement of Marc very well.

Regards,
Tomi

Groovy & OpenOffice?

2007-08-02T11:21:00.001+02:00

There are some blog posts about Groovy as an extension within OpenOffice. It's quite interesting to read...

Enjoy :)

Regards,
Tomi

Post on TheServerSide about HTMLUnit

2007-08-02T10:42:00.001+02:00

I posted a small note on TheServerSide (http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=46374) about the new features of HTMLUnit.

Regards,
Tomi

Groovy in Action

2006-12-20T12:58:00.001+01:00

The book "Groovy in Action" is finally out! Have a look, it's worth reading it!

URL:

http://groovy.canoo.com/gina

Description:

Groovy in Action is a comprehensive description of the Groovy programming language, its libraries, and its everyday use. With the release of JSR 241, Groovy has become the second standard language for the Java platform. The book introduces Java developers to the new dynamic features that Groovy brings to this platform.

Enjoy!

Groovy in Action

2006-12-20T12:58:00.000+01:00

groovy articles on del.icio.us

2006-09-25T11:43:00.000+02:00

Since I'm using Groovy in the current project (thanks to Dierk and Marc) I'll start collect articles about groovy...

This might help some other beginners to start with a steeper learning curve as well :)Enjoy!

Groovy: Parsing an XML file with Groovy

2006-08-28T12:27:00.005+02:00

Groovy comes with a handy XML parser. With this parser you can load an XML file quickly and navigate it easy.

Currently I'm working with WebTest (http://webtest.canoo.com/) for testing functional aspects of an web application.

WebTest comes with a nice overview to present the results of the test runs. The report itself is transformed out of an XML file. For statistics reason, I'm using this XML file to extract specific data. This extraction is done with a little Groovy script.

To get an idea of the WebTest report XML file, have a look a the fragment below:

WebTestReport.xml:





  
      
          
    ...
      
          
              
              
                  
              
              
                  
                  
                  
                                        name="resultFilename" value="response_1156746643278_invoke.html"/>
                  
                  
                      
                  
              
              
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                      
                  
              
          
    ...

This file can be parsed with the following code:


import java.text.SimpleDateFormat

FormatUS = new SimpleDateFormat('EEE MMM dd hh:mm:ss z yyyy', Locale.US)
FormatDE = new SimpleDateFormat('dd.MM.yyyy hh:mm:ss', Locale.GERMAN)

def folder = args?.size() ? args[0] : "data"
println "reading files from directory '$folder'"
def basedir = new File(folder)

// result files of the current run
files = basedir.listFiles().grep(~/.*xml$/)

List resultLines() {
List result = []
for (currentFile in files) {
println "  processing $currentFile"
def summary = new XmlParser().parse(currentFile)

 // List with all 'testresult' elements
def testresults = summary.testresult


testresults.each { testcase ->
     def entry  = [:]
entry.name = testcase.'@testspecname'.split(/\W/)[0]
entry.time = testcase.'@starttime'
entry.time = FormatUS.parse(entry.time)
        entry.time = FormatDE.format(entry.time)
entry.ok   = testcase.'@successful'

def rt = testcase.depthFirst().findAll { element ->
if (element.name() != 'parameter') return false
if (element.'@name' != 'taskName')   return false
def roundtripTags = 'clickLink clickButton clickElement'
roundtripTags.tokenize().contains(element.'@value')
}
entry.roundtrips = rt.size()

def fields = testcase.depthFirst().findAll { element ->
if (element.name() != 'parameter') return false
if (element.'@name' != 'taskName')   return false
def fieldsTags = 'selectForm setCheckbox setFileField setInputField setRadioButton'
fieldsTags.tokenize().contains(element.'@value')
}
entry.fields = fields.size()

def verifies = testcase.depthFirst().findAll { element ->
if (element.name() != 'parameter') return false
if (element.'@name' != 'taskName')   return false
def fieldsTags = 'verifyCheckbox verifyCookie verifyDocumentURL verifyElement'
fieldsTags.tokenize().contains(element.'@value')
}
entry.verifies = verifies.size()

if (testcase.results.error) {
entry.resultsError = testcase.results.error.'@exception'[0]
} else {
entry.resultsError = ''
}

     /*
     if (testcase.results.failure) {
entry.resultsFailure = testcase.results.failure.'@message'[0].replaceAll(/\W/, " ")
println "####" + entry.resultsFailure
} else {
entry.resultsFailure = ''
}
     */

def groupSteps = testcase.results.step.findAll { step ->
   step.parameter.any { param ->
       param.'@name' == 'taskName' && param.'@value' == 'group'
   }
}
      
     def goodSteps = groupSteps.findAll{ it.result?.completed }

     // assumed: there is always at least one group step, size() never 0
     if (groupSteps.size() != 0) {
     entry.complete_pct = goodSteps.size() / groupSteps.size()
     } else {
      entry.complete_pct = 0
     }

if (goodSteps) {
     entry.description = goodSteps[-1].parameter.findAll{it.'@name'=='description'}.'@value'[0]
     } else {
      entry.description = ''
     }

result <<>
writer <<
       "Testfall\t"    <<
       "Datum\t"     <<
       "Erfolgreich\t"    <<
       "Prozent\t"     <<
       "Error\t"       <<
       "Server Roundtrips\t" <<
       "Number of Fields\t"  <<
       "Verifications\t"  <<
       "Beschreibung\n"
for (entry in resultLines()) {
writer <<
     entry.name    << "\t" <<
     entry.time    << "\t" <<
     entry.ok    << "\t" <<
     entry.complete_pct << "\t" <<
     entry.resultsError   << "\t" <<
     entry.roundtrips     << "\t" <<
     entry.fields         << "\t" <<
     entry.verifies       << "\t" <<
     entry.description  << "\n"
}
}

Now you get a tab seperated file with the content of your result files from the web testing runs. I
import this file into Excel and create a pivot table to understand the results better.

I hope this helps :)

Groovy: Get all XML files from a directory tree

2006-08-25T09:00:00.002+02:00

Currently I'm working in a project, where Groovy (a dynamic scripting language for the JVM) is used. One of the project members is Dierk König, which is a Groovy commiter and the author of Groovy in Action. This gives a real insight in the beauty of Groovy :)

Below you can see a nice solution for finding all XML files in a directory tree:


// pass a directory or use the current directory
def folder = args?.size() ? args[0] : "."
println "reading files from directory '$folder'"
def basedir = new File(folder)

// result files of the current run
files = basedir.listFiles().grep(~/.*xml$/)

List resultLines() {
    List result = []
    for (currentFile in files) { 
        println "  processing $currentFile"                
    }
    return result
}

GWT Widget Library

2006-08-14T08:51:00.000+02:00

Google released a new version of GWT today, version 1.1.0. There were some API changes made that broke a few things in the GWT-WL, namely the FormPanel and SVG support. This release is to make the GWT-WL compatible with the latest GWT release. Below are a list of changes...

[from the site]

Eclipse Summit Europe 2006

2006-08-11T13:15:00.000+02:00

The Eclipse Summit Europe will take place in Esslingen, Germany from October 11-12, 2006

Eclipse 3.3 M1 - New and Noteworthy

2006-08-11T08:49:00.000+02:00

It's amazing, how fast the Eclipse people work! Thanks to all of them :)

Lint4j Maven Plugin - Lint4j

2006-08-08T08:40:00.000+02:00

Lint4j comes with a Maven Plugin that simplifies generation of reports significantly.

I'll have to check this plugin with WebTestClipse ...

dzone.com

2006-08-08T08:36:00.000+02:00

An interesting site for developers. It's similar to del.icio.us and stumbleupon , but more focused on developers.

I like these community driven sites, because it allows me to find high quality sites.

SourceForge.net: WebTestClipse

2006-08-03T13:06:00.000+02:00

I added WebTestClipse as a project to Sourceforge.net ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/webtestclipse/ ). The idea is, to use Sourceforge.net as a portal and to redirect to http://webtestclipse.canoo.com/ where the project is hosted and developed...

Setting up the master Maven 2 project for WebTestClipse - Install Maven 2

2006-07-28T14:32:00.001+02:00

I'm setting up the master Maven 2 project for WebTestClipse . You can follow these steps to set up any kind of project.In this post I'll descripe the installation of Maven 2, based on links and some minor notes. It's not to be considered to be a complete installation guide.

1.) Download Maven 2

Download Maven 2 from http://maven.apache.org/download.html and chose the right distribution. I'm using http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/maven/binaries/maven-2.0.4-bin.zip .

2.) Unpack Maven into a local directory

I've chosen C:\dev\maven-2.0.4 as my Maven 2 home directory.

3.) Environment Variable

Define a %MAVEN_HOME% variable and extend the %PATH% variable. This will make it possible to call Maven 2 commands from the command line

4.) Test your Installation

Testing the installation is fairly simple. Just call a Maven 2 command from the command shell:

mvn -v

As a result you should see:

Maven version: 2.0.4

Joined WebTestClipse

2006-07-28T10:45:00.000+02:00

I joined the WebTestClipse project. The goal of the project is to provide a set of Eclipse features and plugins to develop tests for WebTest .

Daily IT Thoughts...

2006-07-28T10:00:00.000+02:00

I'll start making daily notes about my work, this shall be a collection of impressions but also of small code fragments which help me on my daily projects...

Eclipse and Java on USB Memory Stick

2006-01-09T09:23:00.000+01:00

I bought myself a memory stick a few days ago, mainly to store data which I download in a internet coffee shops. I find it quite annoying to transport my laptop every time I just would like to read some mails...

Somehow I found portableapps.com which has a nice collection of tools (Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.) which can be copied on the USB memory stick and started from there. This makes it easy to use my favorite browser and mail client...

For me the next question was: can I install Eclipse and Java on the memory stick and use it? Yes, you can :)

Here a short description on what I did:

1.) Copy a current installation of Java to the memory stick. I really copied it, I didn't install it!
2.) Copy Eclipse on the memory stick.
3.) Write a simple batch file to start Eclipse.

that's it!

My directory structure on the memory stick looks like this:

%USB_MEMORY_STICK_ROOT%
| Eclipse.bat
+---Applications
+---jdk1.5.0_05
| \---bin
| \---javaw.exe
|
+---eclipse
\---eclipse.exe

Eclipse.bat looks like this:

.\Applications\eclipse\eclipse.exe
-data .\Projects
-vm .\Applications\jdk1.5.0_05\bin\javaw.exe
-vmargs -Xmx256M

Enjoy :)

Maven 2 - How To: Where to put the properties?

2005-12-19T07:19:00.000+01:00

1) The properties, in Maven 1 in build.properties and project.properties, are stored in settings.xml

2) Create the settings.xml in your user directory

Under Windows XP, this is:

C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\.m2\settings.xml

If you have to configure a proxy, it would look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<settings>
<proxies>
<proxy>
<active/>
<protocol>http</protocol>
<username>user</username>
<password>passwd</password>
<port>8080</port>
<host>proxy-url</host>
<id/>
</proxy>
</proxies>
</settings>

3) Since settings.xml is not part of your workspace and won't be stored in the project repository, you don't have it within your development environment. I'm using Eclipse for my development and I included the settings.xml in my project as a linked resource to the file system.

This approach gives you the advantage, that you can edit settings.xml easily within Eclipse and you don't have to leave your development environment :)

* * *

Reference:

http://maven.apache.org/maven-settings/settings.html

Maven 2 - How To: Multiple Module (flat project layout)

2005-12-17T08:53:00.002+01:00

1) Create at least two Maven projects in a flat project layout...

%PROJECT_WORKSPACE%\%YOUR_PROJECT_MASTER%pom.xml
...

%PROJECT_WORKSPACE%\%YOUR_PROJECT_SLAVE%pom.xml
...

2) Define the <groupId> and <artifactId> of the modules...

%PROJECT_WORKSPACE%\%YOUR_PROJECT_MASTER%\pom.xml:

<project>
...
<groupId>somegroup.master</groupId>
<artifactId>master</artifactId>
...
</project>

%PROJECT_WORKSPACE%\%YOUR_PROJECT_SLAVE%\pom.xml:

<project>
...
<groupId>somegroup.slave</groupId>
<artifactId>slave</artifactId>
...
</project>

3) Define the modules in the master project...

Here I added first the artifactId, but it didn't work. I changed it to the directory and everything was fine.

%PROJECT_WORKSPACE%\%YOUR_PROJECT_MASTER%\pom.xml:

<project>
...
<modules>
<module>../%YOUR_PROJECT_SLAVE%</module>
</modules>
...
</project>

4) Add the <parent> and <dependency> element in the slave module...

%PROJECT_WORKSPACE%\%YOUR_PROJECT_SLAVE%\pom.xml:

<project>
...
<parent>
<groupId>somegroup.master</groupId>
<artifactId>master</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
</parent>
...
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>somegroup.master</groupId>
<artifactId>master</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
</dependency>
...
</dependencies>
...
</project>

5) Call mvn install...

First the master project will be called and than slaven... That's it :)

* * *

References:

- http://maven.apache.org/
- http://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-dependency-mechanism.html
- http://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-ide-eclipse.html

Maven 2 - How To: Add LICENSE.txt

2005-12-17T08:53:00.001+01:00

1) Add LICENSE.txt to the root directory of your project...

%YOUR_PROJECT% pom.xml
LICENSE.txt
src site ...

2) Copy your license into LICENSE.txt

3) Include the <licenses> element in the pom.xml...

%YOUR_PROJECT%\pom.xml:

<project>
...
<licenses>
<license>
<name>The Apache Software License, Version 2.0</name>
<url>LICENSE.txt</url>
</license>
</licenses>
</project>

4) Inculde project ${reports} in site.xml

%YOUR_PROJECT%\src\site\site.xml:

<project>
...
${reports}
</body>
</project>

Maven 2 - Collection of How-To's

2005-12-17T08:53:00.000+01:00

I'm currently migrating two projects to Maven 2 (http://maven.apache.org/) and decided that I'll document this within my blog.

Although the Maven documentation has grown a lot, I'm still having difficulties to find the right piece of documentation to get my things done. Often I have to check the Maven repository to see how the Maven guys did it. By the way - I think this is a great advantage of open source ;) I hope and I'm quite sure, that this will improve a lot within the next few weeks and months.

Since I forget very fast ;) (very-very short time memory), I'll write down a collection of How-To's, where I describe little tasks. Maybe this will be helpful for other people too...

Working Offline

2005-12-17T08:52:00.000+01:00

Currently I'm spending many hours working offline and this wasn't very easy when I started doing it. I was used to have internet access 24x7. Since I'm in Thailand (see http://tomionthai.blogspot.com/) now and I don't have an internet access at the place I'm staying, I had to find a new way of working.

My first approach was saving the websites with Firefox (http://www.mozilla.org/) for offline reading and Google Desktop Search (http://desktop.google.com/) for indexing all the pages. After a while I switched from Firefox to HTTrack (http://www.httrack.com/) for downloading the pages, since it allows the download of a complete website with all the links and referenced pages. This approach was ok, but had its disadvantages like:

1) I had to come up with my own directory structure to save all the websites.
2) Using Firefox wasn't very comfortable since it tries to save the file with the URL file name. This is very unpleasant if you have a site providing dynamic content and it's using post - every URL looks exactly the same and you will have to rename each file you would like to save locally.
3) Some websites can't be downloaded with HTTrack (or at least I didn't find the right configuration). I spent hours to find the right configuration for downloading Maven (http://maven.apache.org/), but I wasn't very successful.
4) It took quite some time to start and configure HTTrack everytime I wanted to have a certain page for offline reading.
5) Often I downloaded much more than I wanted with HTTrack, which resultat in very long download times and waste of diskspace.

But the biggest drawback was, that this approach saved a lot of garbage on my laptop, which I dind't wanted. Most of the pages show headers, footers, menus and a lot of advertisement. By using Firefox or HTTrack all of this was downloaded as well and resultet in bad search results in Google Desktop Search, this because menus referenced to other pages with the actual content and this menu links contained my search key words, of course Google Desktop Search listed them too.

Finally I found a much nicer and even easier approach. My dream team is called PDFCreater (http://pdfcreator.sourceforge.net/, http:www.pdfcreator.de.vu/) and Google Desktop Search. Everytime I see a page, an article or some content I would like to read offline, I print it with PDFCreator and save the pdf file on my disk. First of all, many pages offer a printer-friendly version of the content which results in a nice print and in this case in a nice pdf file. I don't have to create complex directory structures anymore, I just created a simple structure with meta descriptions and I save all the pages/pdfs in these directories. Google Desktop Search has no problem indexing the pdf files and it's also nicer to read them in Acrobat Reader (http://www.adobe.com/) than in Firefox. The final advantage for me is, that I can easily backup all the files and I use them as my knowledgebase.

If you have to work a lot offline, but you still would like to read current articles from the internet, you might want to try this approach. If you have a better approach, I'm very interested in knowing it... thanks in advance :)

Java XML Binding

2005-12-15T07:06:00.000+01:00

I'm working right now on CreateTree, a simple tool for reading and
creating directory and file structures, CreateTree is a part of the BDT
project (http://bdt.sf.net/).

The model is defined in a XML Schema and finally transformed with Apache
XML Beans into a Java model.

Before I decided to use Apache XML Beans, I had a look at
https://bindmark.dev.java.net/, a project which compares Java XML
Binding tools.

Since I don't have much experience with bind tools, Bindmark is very
helpful and provides a lot of information.

New Eclipse help plugin for eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net available

2005-12-01T10:53:00.000+01:00

New Eclipse help plugin for the tutorials at eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net available

I developed a new Eclipse help plugin, containing all the tutorials from eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net. With the new plugin, you can select the tutorials you would like to see and you don't have to download all of it at once.

This will help us to deliver new tutorials easier for the help plugin.

You can find the Eclipse help plugin under:

https://eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net/update

Enjoy :)

New visual tutorials available

2005-11-22T08:12:00.000+01:00

I added four new tutorials to eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net. The new tutorials are based on Eclipse 3.1.x and show some of the new features.

- Ant Code Templates
- Generating Ant Buildfile for Eclipse Java project
- Create a new Perspective
- How to use the Help System

https://eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net/

Enjoy!

Great Ranking for eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net

2005-10-15T13:52:00.000+02:00

Today I had a look at http://community.java.net/projects/top.csp to see, what rank the eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net project has and I was completely surprised!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks to me, that the other 9 projects in the list have a very close relation to java.sun.com. If this is right, I think the 3rd rank is simply great :)

Joomla Developer

2005-10-01T05:40:00.000+02:00

The Joomla community has a new development space provided by Sourceforge:

http://developer.joomla.org/

It's amazing to see, what momentum is behind some people :) I wish them all the best in developing Joomla and increasing the community!

New Eclipse Plugin for Eclipse Tutorial

2005-09-13T09:57:00.000+02:00

I have published a new Eclipse plugin for eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net.

Update site: eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net/update

Enjoy!

EclipseZone

2005-08-06T07:37:00.000+02:00

New Eclipse Website available

http://www.eclipsezone.com/

Have fun!

Inversion of Control

2005-08-03T06:26:00.000+02:00

Inversion of Control is a key part of what makes a framework different to a library. A library is essentially a set of functions that you can call, these days usually organized into classes. Each call does some work and returns control to the client.

A framework embodies some abstract design, with more behavior built in. In order to use it you need to insert your behavior into various places in the framework either by subclassing or by plugging in your own classes. The framework's code then calls your code at these points.

Martin Fowler - http://martinfowler.com/bliki/InversionOfControl.html

How To Remove An Obsolet Workspace From Eclipse 3.1

2005-07-26T06:20:00.001+02:00

Sometimes you would like to remove an obsolet workspace from Eclipse. Suppose you have made a test workspace to try some things out and now you don't wont and don't need it anymore.

If you remove the workspace from your disk, it'll still appear in the workspace launcher, when you start up Eclipse.

So, how do you get rid of it?

Ecplise is storing the workspace information in a preferences file called "org.eclipse.ui.ide.prefs". This file is located under "%ECLIPSE_HOME%\configuration\.settings" and contains a key named "RECENT_WORKSPACES". The value of this key contains a comma seperated list of workspaces, more precisely the path to the workspaces. If you delete one of the entries, it'll disappear from the workspace launcher.

What you have to do is the following:

exit Eclipse
delete the workspace from your disk
delete the path pointing to your obsolet workspace in the mentioned preferences file
start Eclipse

You shouldn't see the workspace anymore in your workspace launcher :-)

German translation of eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net

2005-07-22T06:53:00.000+02:00

The first german translation of eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net is done. I figured out, that it's not that easy to translate tutorials :-)

Open Source Java Applikationen entwickeln mit java.net und Eclipse

Teil 1- Neues Projekt in Eclipse erstellen

Let me know, if there are some terrible translation mistakes!

Enjoy! :-)

When Maven encounters Eclipse

2005-06-17T12:14:00.000+02:00

When Maven encounters Eclipse.

Subversion 1.2.0

2005-05-26T09:46:00.000+02:00

Version 1.2.0 released. See Subversion

BDT - Build Development Tools

2005-05-23T20:27:00.000+02:00

New project started for Eclipse...

The BDT (Build Development Tools) Project is working towards providing a fully functional Build Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for the Eclipse platform.

Check it out from time to time, there should be some changes within the next few weeks.

Ant 1.6.4 Available

2005-05-23T20:20:00.000+02:00

Ant 1.6.4 Available!

Maven & multiple source trees

2005-05-18T17:07:00.000+02:00

Have a look at an interesting article about Maven and multiple source trees in Michael Nielsen's Blog: http://weblogs.java.net/blog/michael_n/archive/2005/05/maven_multiple.html

Build Environment Systems

2005-05-18T16:05:00.000+02:00

When ever you start a new project you'll find out, that you have to ship the software at a certain point :-) and to do that there are many tasks involved:

deliver the application as a zip file including a batch or shell script to execute it
deliver the application with all the necessary deployment descriptors, security role assignments, etc., so the application can be deployed
deliver an installer for one or many operating systems
deliver it in any kind your customer would like to have it

Usually this task is not that complex, but there are many tiny tasks involved, like:

pack all the necessary libs for your application
generate a working classpath (sometimes not that easy...)
generate all the documentations
generate the batch and shell scripts
generate some testdata
create the installer build files
etc.

If you forget one or you don't do them the same way every time, your delivery won't address the needs and the expectations of your customer.

Beside this, if your delivery will be tested by some testing folks on the customer side, they'll flood your bug tracking system, because some bugs will look quite different every time. And you won't hire some new people just to sort out the same bugs, would you? ;-)

To address these needs, most Java projects are using Ant. Ant is a quasi standard for building Java applications. The Apache Ant project describes itself as: Apache Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of like Make, but without Make's wrinkles.

In Ant you can define targets and within the targets you have different tasks. The targets once more can have dependencies to other targets. If you are not familiar with Ant, have a look at "Writing a Simple Buildfile" tutorial from the Ant project. This will give you a good introduction.

If you start using Ant, you figure out, that you are doing the same things again and again. For example: your application is based on several components and you would like to compile each of them independently. You'll start writing a compile target for every component and at a certain point you'll try to refactor your build files so you can use one compile target for all your components.

I invested quite some time in my build files and started to use them in different projects. So I started to use my own build environment components. I'm not quite sure, if this is the right approache, since there are many projects out there which are doing the same thing... but usually much more sophisticated...

These projects are using Ant or extending it and building a set of predefined targets to use:

To get a more complete list of Ant related tools, check the Ant project site:

Another Apache project, addressing the need of a good build environment system is Maven. Maven itself is much more sophisticated than Ant and they use a different aproach. Maven is built around a project object model and is providing a huge set of goals (in Ant terms these would be targets). Beside this, Maven is able to deal with dependencies in your project.

Currently the Maven team is working on Version 2.0 of Maven. If you are interested in Maven 2.0 have a look at the project site: http://maven.apache.org/maven2/.

It's very much recommended, that you invest enough time in your build environment and that you maintain it as good as possible. You should keep in mind, that your build scripts are a part of your software and you should treat it with the same respect as your source code.

Some people might think, that a fully automated build environment is to expensive. But if you have a closer look at all the details and all the knowledge lying in your build environment and in your build process, you'll see that the positive aspects outweigh.

To understand the importance of a good build environment, you also should read the article of Martin Fowler about Continuous Integration.

ApacheCon Europe 2005

2005-05-16T15:50:00.000+02:00

FindBugs 0.8.8 - Code Analyzer

2005-05-16T15:47:00.000+02:00

The FindBugs Java code analysis tool project has released version 0.8.8 with many feature enhancements. Those include detection for duplicate code in if/else statements, new function calls, increased detection of impossible casts, statistics saving, and more.

PMD 3.1

2005-05-16T15:45:00.000+02:00

Tom Copeland had announced the release of version 3.1 of his Java code analyzer PMD. "It includes eight new rules, a slew of bug fixes, and better support for JDK 1.5. Several rules were optimized, for example, UnusedModifer now runs about ten times faster." A full change log is available.

Apache Maven 2.0 Alpha 2

2005-05-16T15:41:00.000+02:00

The Apache Maven development team has announced the release of version 2.0 Alpha 2 of the software project management tool. "This release is expected to be much more architecturally stable, making early adoption a possiblity. At this point, there are still only the core plugins available."

Eclipse 3.1 Milestone 7

2005-05-16T15:40:00.000+02:00

The Eclipse IDE project has released its seventh milestone for version 3.1. "M7 is the final milestone build of the Eclipse Platform 3.1 development cycle, and marks the official start of the 3.1 endgame." M7 features undo and redo features for refactoring, and many UI tweaks.

New Visual Tutorials - eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net

2005-05-08T16:00:00.000+02:00

I've added three new Visual Tutorials to eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net and modified the help plugin.

If you have and ideas or suggestions about the tutorials, let me know :-)

Enjoy!

Application Server Matrix

2005-05-07T22:32:00.000+02:00

TheServerSide.com is providing an Application Server Matrix. Have a look at http://www.theserverside.com/reviews/matrix.tss

Update site available for eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net

2005-05-06T00:58:00.000+02:00

The update site for eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net is now available on the project site:

https://eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net/update

Enjoy :-)

Static Code Analysis

2005-05-05T15:43:00.000+02:00

If you would like to improve the quality of your code you can use a set of open source tools to achieve that. For Java there are many different tools, covering different aspects of static code analysis.

Please keep in mind, that automated static code analysis, never gives you a 100% answer about the quality of your code. From my point of view, it's more about getting some indications if your code has more or less options for improvements. Believe me, most of the time, there are more options for improvements then you would think of...

Code Conventions - CheckStyle

Let's start with the basic need of code conventions. If you start a new project you would like to have some conventions how the code has to be written. There are some Java code conventions provided by Sun, but you don't want to check them manually, do you?

To ensure, that your code is written according to your conventions, you can use CheckStyle. Run your checks with Ant or a command line tool.

It's highly recommended to use Ant or Maven to do the checks, since you would like to have a complete build cycle with different tools.

Code Reviews - Hammurapi, PMD

Usually there are some development guidelines, best practices or just how-to's while your working on a project, a framework or an application. These guidelines try to improve the quality of your software. But how do you check, if people follow these guidelines? Usually you do code reviews and try to find obvious mistakes. But unfortunately code reviews are very time consuming and expensive.

You can automatize certain aspects of the review process, by checking your code with tools like Hammurapi or PMD. Both tools provide rules which are organized in different groups, like: database connection pool, EJB, exception handling, and many more. Have a look at the project sites to get an overview of all the available rules.

If you have some special guidelines, which are important for your project, but not available in Hammurapi or PMD, you can write your own rules. Both tools are providing a simple interface to add new, project specific rules.

Common Bugs - FindBugs

There are many different type of bugs, you can write :-) and many times they follow a certain pattern. With FindBugs you can analyze your code and it'll check it according to a huge set of possible bugs, based on patterns.

Once again, there is no guarantee, you'll find all the bugs or it'll even point you to some code fragments which don't have a bug at all.

Testing - JUnit, TestNG

Testing is one of the most important aspects of quality. If you don't write test cases for your software, you don't know, what you are developing. Testing is a necessary precondition for refactoring. If you refactor your code, without test cases, you can't tell, if you changed something in the functionality or not.

A quasi standard testing tool is JUnit. It's a simple testing framework for unit testing. There is a huge set of tools, using JUnit as a core to test different aspcets, like HTTPUnit, Cactus or StrutsTestCase.

In the last few months an other testing framework got a lot of attention, it's called TestNG. Since JUnit has many limitations, there is a need for a more flexible testing framework.

Coverage - Corbertura, JCoverage, EMMA

While writing unit tests for your software, you would like to know, how much of your code is covered by your tests. There are quite many tools, which try to address this need. Have a look at Corbertura, JCoverage or EMMA for a start.

Many times the coverage tools are used for analyzing the test coverage of your software. An other nice aspect would be, to analyze the code which has been used during the execution of your application. These could show you, which code has been "touched" during the exectution and if you have to do some bug fixing, you would see, if a certain class is used quite often or seldom.

Test Quality - Jester

To find out, how robust your test classes and methods are, you can use Jester to test your test code.

Build Environment - Ant, Maven

As mentioned above, you should atomize your build environment. I think, the quasi standard to do this is Ant. Another very nice tool, is Maven. Both are providing the possibility to atomize a complex set of task.

Contiunous Integration - CruiseControl

Finally, you would like to analyze your code as often as possible. Now we are talking about continuous integration. Please take the time and read the article of Martin Fowler about continuous integration, I belive it's a must for every developer!

A great tool, to set up an continuous integration environment is CruiseControl. There are some other tools, but I won't mention them here.

Google How-To

2005-04-25T00:04:00.000+02:00

Google provides many services around searching. Are you sure, you use Google the best way and that you get the maximum out of it?

If you are not sure, have a look at these links:

Google Basic Search (http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/basics.html)
Google Advanced Search (http://www.google.com/advanced_search)
Google Help: Advanced Search (http://www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html)
Google Web Search Features (http://www.google.com/help/features.html)
Google Guide (http://www.googleguide.com/index.html)
Google Weblog (http://google.blogspace.com/)
StumbleUpon Google Group (http://google.group.stumbleupon.com/)

Google started recently a personal search history. You can get an account and tracking your searches:

Google Search History (http://www.google.com/searchhistory/)

And if you would like to develop your own application, Google provides a search API:

Google Web Search API (http://www.google.com/apis/)

Happy googeling ;-)

Eclipse Help Plugin for eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net

2005-04-24T02:21:00.000+02:00

I packed the eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net Tutorials into an Eclipse Help Plugin, which is available in the Help Contents of Eclipse.

For the moment you can reach the Update Site on:

http://www.tomi.ch/informatik/eclipse/tutorial/update/

The plugin and the eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net is not in sync, since I didn't automated it yet. I'll update the plugin from time to time...

If you have any suggestions, please let me know...

CruiseControl Action Movie

2005-04-11T10:47:00.000+02:00

If you like the idea of continuous intergration, check out a CruiseControl action movie by Mike Clark:

CruiseControl Action Movie

Enjoy!

Network Prefetching in Firefox

2005-04-11T10:21:00.000+02:00

Firefox is supporting a prefetching mechanism, which allows to download site's in the background.

You can enable prefetching by doing the following:

Type "about:config" in the address bar.
Scroll down to the setting "network.prefetch-next" and set the value to "true".

By default, prefetching is enabled.

Check out these links for more information:

Enjoy!

Maven 2.0 Technology Preview Release

2005-04-10T00:02:00.000+02:00

The first Maven 2.0 Technology Preview release is now out:

http://maven.apache.org/maven2/index.html

Eclipse Plugins

2005-04-09T14:40:00.000+02:00

If you are looking for Eclipse plugins, check the following sites...

The Eclipse project is maintaining a community page with many links:

open source projects and plug-ins

There is also a great site by Urbaan, with a huge list of plugins:

www.eclipse-plugins.info

It's also worth to check a site provided by Genuitec, Innoopract, and Instantiations:

Eclipse Plugin Resource Center and Marketplace

And of course there are some sites by IBM, including as well articles and tutorials:

Source Code Search Engines

2005-04-08T10:44:00.000+02:00

Lately I was thinking about all the open source code which is available around the world. I was asking myself, how it would be possible to search through all this code and to use it for studies and analysis.

Of course, this is not a new idea and I was surprised how many tools try to address this topic in one or another way...

Source Code:

http://www.koders.com/

From the site: Koders.com is the leading search engine for open source code. Our source code optimized search engine provides developers with an easy-to-use interface to search for source code examples and discover new open source projects which can be leveraged in their applications.

http://www.jexamples.com/

From the site: We analyze the source code of production Java open source projects such as Ant, Tomcat and Batik and load that analysis into a database designed for easy searching. You enter the name of a Java Class.method you want to see example invocations of and click Search.

http://archive.devx.com/sourcebank/

From the site: DevX's Sourcebank is a directory of links to source code and script posted around the Web. Use the Search option to find terms within the source code. To cast the widest net, use the search with All Types selected. Or, you can browse through a subset of the code by categories (below). First, select a filter, such as C or Java, by clicking on one of the square buttons and then choose one of the categories (such as Mathematics) from within that filter.

http://gonzui.sourceforge.net/

From the site: gonzui is a source code search engine for accelerating open source software development. In the open source software development, programmers frequently refer to source codes written by others. Our goal is to help programmers develop programs effectively by creating a source code search engine that covers vast quantities of open source codes available on the Internet.

Components, Libraries:

http://www.codezoo.net/

From the site: CodeZoo exists to help you find high-quality, freely available, reusable components, getting you past the repetitive parts of coding, and onto the rest and the best of your projects. It’s a fast-forward button for your compiler.

http://www.jarhoo.com/

From the site: Searches for jar files or fully qualified java class names usually performed under 2 seconds. Package or non-qualified class name searches may take around 10 seconds

Javadoc:

http://www.jdocs.com/

From the site: JDocs is a comprehensive online resource for Java API documentation. All the javadocs for a variety of popular packages are loaded into our db-driven system, and users can contribute their own notes to virtually any class, field, method. In short, JDocs provides a knowledge base defined around the major Java api's themselves, so you can find the information you're looking for right where it should be... in the documentation!

http://javadocs.org/

From the site: You can search from the url, eg: javadocs.org/string

http://ashkelon.sourceforge.net/

From the site: ashkelon is an open source project. It is a Java API documentation tool designed for Java developers. Its goals are the same as the goals of the well-known javadoc tool that comes with J2SE, whose user interface most java developers are quite familiar with.

New Visual Eclipse Tutorial Available: Adding, Moving and Docking Views

2005-04-03T19:24:00.000+02:00

I've added a new visual tutorial to the eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net project:

Part 3 - Adding, Moving and Docking Views

Project "PMD" has released the new version

2005-03-24T18:35:00.000+01:00

From the site...

PMD scans Java source code and looks for potential problems like:

Empty try/catch/finally/switch blocks

Unused local variables, parameters and private methods

Empty if/while statements

Overcomplicated expressions - unnecessary if statements, for loops that could be while loops

Classes with high Cyclomatic Complexity measurements

PMD has plugins for JDeveloper, Eclipse, JEdit, JBuilder, Omnicore's CodeGuide, NetBeans/Sun ONE Studio, IntelliJ IDEA, TextPad, Maven, Ant, Gel, JCreator, and Emacs. You can download everything from here.

Check out the project: http://pmd.sf.net/

New Blog...

2005-03-23T14:38:00.000+01:00

Starting a new Blog on Blogger.com...