Admin-Documentation

How-To's

Requirements

Admin runs with JDK 1.7 or higher. As well as you need a RDBMS and a JDBC-Driver, see the Tested with section.
You need to add the following libraries to your CLASSPATH

• JDOM for the Codegenerator
• Martin Newsteads MSeries for the Codegenerator
• Calendarbean for the Codegenerator
• I did some tests with servlets, so if you want to dig in, you need to have servlet-engine
• POI if you want to export data into XLS

Classes

The windows you seen in Admin mostly are able to run standalone. This classes will display the requested paramters, so they can be launched as standalone. What they always need is HOST, USER, PASSWORD and DATABASE and you can give a SCHEMA over, if not it is handled as %.
There are some classes asking for parameters being told to you by calling without parameters. So if needed, you will get a screen like this:

hulmen% java gpl.fredy.generate.GenerateXML

Fredy's Generate XML
--------------------
Generates a XML-file out of the MetaData of a Database
The primary use of this XML-file is to generate Java-Code
Just feed this file into the GenerateForm to get all of it.

Syntax: GenerateXML -h host         [default: localhost]
                    -u user         [default: afs]
                    -p password
                    -s schema       [default: %]
                    -d database
                    -t table        [default: %]
                    -f file         [default: /export/home/afs/database.xml]
                    -v verbose
                    -help this screen
        

Configuration files

• admin.props

  This file is generated automatically at the first start of admin. It is placed in the directory read from the system-properties user.home. So you are able to change it by changine this property by passing over the parameter -Duser.home= to the VM. This is helpfull by using environments like Windows, where the user.home is somewhere. While using admin on a Unix, this will be the users home-directory (e.g. /export/home/fredy). There is as well a parameter that has the same effect, but is then controlled by admin:
  -Dadmin.work=. Better solution is to use the VM-parameter. The file admin.props contains user specified date, so it might be good to have a own one for every user in a multi-user-environment.

• t_connect.props

  This file is pretty much the same as admin.props, but only contains the DB-related information as it is needed for the t_connect.class that creates the connection to the DB. There are the same parameters valid as for admin.props. So if you generate a application with admin, you only need to have t_connect.props for launching this application.

• selgui.props

  This file only contains one line to tell the selection-tool where to find its files

• rdbms.dat

  This file is specific for admin only. It has to exist for the log-in dialog, because the JDBC-Driver-ComboBox is generated out of it and it contains the JDBC-Driver information. So best place to have this is the directory where admin is located. If this file is not found or not existing, admin will present a error-message.

  Store this file under gpl/fredy/share
  rdbms.dat is used to make the selection of different JDBC-Drivers easier and its structure is as follows:
  

  • each line is one RDBMS
  • each line consists out of five parameters
    • Database-Product name as the text in the comobox e.g. Instant-DB-Enhydra
    • the JDBC-Driver e.g. org.enhydra.instantdb.jdbc.idbDriver
    • the Database URL e.g.jdbc:idb:
    • the Database Port e.g. 3306 if MySQL put a o if no listener is running, e.g. when using InstantDB
    • the Database Vendor Icon to show in the Login-Screen
  • the value-separator is ^

Installation

Best thing is, to create a own directory, let's name it ./java. Then unpack admin in this directory. It will create the tree:

• gpl/fredy/admin you will find there in the main classes of Admin
• gpl/fredy/share all common used classes
• gpl.fredy.ui the user interface classes, needs
  
  • gpl.fredy.share
  • gpl.fredy.metadata
• gpl/fredy/images here you will find the images used by admin.
• gpl/fredy/metadata the classes that handles all about meta-information of the DB
• gpl/fredy/sqltools the classes around the tools struggeling around with SQL-commands, needs
  
  • gpl.fredy.share
  • gpl.fredy.metadata
• gpl/fredy/generate all about generating code, needs:
  
  • gpl.fredy.share
  • gpl.fredy.ui
  • gpl.fredy.metadata
  • gpl.fredy.io
• applications/basics here you will find all the classes needed for launching generated applications. As soon as you generate the first classes, there will be a directory named as the database is named.

Starting admin

If all is set, you launch it by java gpl.fredy.admin.Admin...
There is two parameters you can add to the JVM while starting admin:

user.home

The directory admin uses to read/write its config files admin.props and t_connect.props

admin.image

Where admin is going to fetch its images from. This can be at three generic places gpl/fredy/images the standard place admin is looking for gpl/fredy/[PACKAGENAME]/images if the image is not at the Standard-place admin.image if this value is set, this is the position admin is going at this value has the form of an URL like file://export/home/java/images /export/home/java/images http://gotzenwil.eidberg.ch/admin/images

Examples

Using the data selection-tool

The purpose of the data selection tool is, to provide a simple data drilling tool. Find the description of this tool here.

Using the Code Generator

To run the Code Generator you must have JDOM in a minimal of beta 8 in your CLASSPATH and if yo uplan to use the XML-Editor you need to add as well Martin Newstead's MSeries to the CLASSPATH.

Have a closer look at the documentation or get first a quick introduction here:

This generator does three files:

• the wrapper file

  The name of that class is Row.java .This code contains for each field in the table a get and a set methode. As well as there are insert, update, save and delete methods and searchBy{Fieldname}-methods.
  As well as there is a searchAll-method. These searchXXX-methods are of type xxxRow. All searchBy{FieldName}-mathods are as follows:
  public String searchBy(String,boolean)
  Where String is the searchpattern and the boolean is to do a search as follows:
  true = exact search (e.g. search * from table where field =
  false= use wildcards (e.g. search * from table where field like
  

• the Swing-GUI

  The name of that class is Form.java. This is a simple swing-class delivering a gui, as you see it in the screenshots. You can launch this application equal you are launching admin. There is an example, where you see how I did it. It is basically
  java -Duser.home={userhome} applications.{DB-Name}.{TableName}Formd -h host -u user -p password
  

• the JTableModel

  The name of this class is TableModel.java. IT allows to write back values to the DB as they are changed, if the primarykey is known.

To generate the code first there is to build a XML-file containing all the information for the code-generator. This XML-File can be customized to create the Swing-GUI of a table other than standard.
The file-dependencies are as follows:

Wrapperfile	Swing GUI
applications.[DATABASENAME].[TABLENAME]Row.java	applications.[DATABASENAME].[TABLENAME]Form.java
applications.basics.BasicWrapper.java	applications.basics.BasicGrid.java
JTableModel
applications.basics.GenericTableModel.java
applications.[DATABASENAME].[TABLENAME]TableModel.java

The XMLEditor is to edit the XML-File for the Swing-GUI. You need to have Martin Newstead's MSeries into your CLASSPATH. Be aware of the two different versions that exist now, one for JDK below 1.4 and one for JDK 1.4 and higher.

Data Export / Import

The SQL-output always allows to export the result into a csv-file, see the SQL-Monitor and the guided query. So this file can easily be imported into other DBMS or into a spreadsheet like StarCalc from StarOffice.
Admin as well allows to import such a file under [Tools][Import Delimiter File]. If you tick the use Header Check-box the insertion will be done according the fields of the header.

Dynamic Form

Admin offers a dynamic form (AutoForm.class), that allows dynamic entry of data into a table. It does not verify the input. If a entry is rejected by the RDBMS, this will result into a error-box. The find-button lists the content of the table and it can be transfered into the grid by clicking on a row.

Guided query

The guided query (Qbe.class) can be used to generate a SQL-statement over a table. You select the desired table by a double click in the table tab, as Qbe needs to gatter meta-data-info of the table to construct the other tabs, this will take a moment. Qbe indicates its readiness by displaying the name of the requested table in the status line. In the columns tab you select the columns to be displayed within the query result. In the conditions tab you can enter the conditions of each row of the table As this is done, proceed to the query-tab and press the generate query button. Then the only thing to be done is to execute the generated query.

Questions?

Send me a an Email.

Compile Sequence and dependencies

You need to have the following libraries into your CLASSPATH

• JCalendarBean
• MSeries
• JDOM

• gpl.fredy.share
• gpl.fredy.metadata
• gpl.fredy.ui
• gpl.fredy.sqltools
• gpl.fredy.generate
• gpl.fredy.admin

ORACLE Tips

Be careful while selecting the SCHEMA. A wrong schema setting will end into either not finding any table or finding a lot. As example for the scott/tiger internal example I made best experience with SCOTT as a schema-name. but I'm absolutely not a ORACLE-specialist, so any hint into this direction is highly welcome.

Log Server

     handlers= java.util.logging.SocketHandler
     .level= ALL
     java.util.logging.SocketHandler.formatter = java.util.logging.FxmlFormatter
     java.util.logging.SocketHandler.level = ALL
     java.util.logging.SocketHandler.host = localhost
     java.util.logging.SocketHandler.port = 5237