openinteract-dev — For OI developers, includes project coordination and technical discussion.

Re: [Openinteract-dev] had to change driver

[Chris W. <ch...@cw...>]

joseph speigle wrote:
> hi, had to change the driver in spops.perl that's all.

Just a couple of tangential notes:

  - Rather than modify the spops.perl file directly, you can modify 
it from the conf/override_spops.ini file. This allows you to change 
individual values in any of the SPOPS configurations and retain them 
even when you upgrade packages.

  - OpenInteract2 does away with this problem by linking the SPOPS 
datasource to an SPOPS driver and at server startup time specifying 
the right driver.

Chris

[Openinteract-dev] had to change driver

[joseph s. <joe...@jk...>]

hi, had to change the driver in spops.perl that's all.
-- 
joseph speigle
www.sirfsup.com
joe at jklh dot us
page: 377-7377 (210)

[Openinteract-dev] another fruity problem

[joseph s. <joe...@jk...>]

hi, 
going back into the fruit problem now, trying to get my spops object to instantiate, i can't install the data but I can install the tables.  I'm using postgres and everything is working properly, but this part takes some tweaking and this time I'm coming up empty.  The last part of the package install with oi_manage is

     Structure:
        * Created table from (fruit.sql): ok
        * Created table from (fruit_sequence.sql): ok
      Data:
        * Error: Cannot create SPOPS object!
      Basic: Cannot find ID value in mysql_insertid
      Error: Cannot find ID value in mysql_insertid

      Security:
        * install_security for Pg: no action taken

at one point (??) it also wouldn't install the data file because it wasn't picking up the sequence, and when I looked at the table structure it was saying 'id' was int not null but didn't pick up the sequence, which is the mysql way of looking at the %%INCREMENT%%.  

The only values I have in server.ini are for Pg.
-- 
joseph speigle
www.sirfsup.com
joe at jklh dot us
page: 377-7377 (210)

Re: [Openinteract-dev] little feature request

[Chris W. <ch...@cw...>]

joseph speigle wrote:
> I was wondering if there are plans for the future to add a
> sequence to the base_theme package so when a package installs its
> theme there won't be a conflict with any future packages which
> may have chosen the same theme_id.

This is a good idea. In fact OI2 has a management task to dump a 
theme and install a theme from that dump. It takes care of internal 
ID consistency.

> I'm asking because I want to change the default template, and to
> do that I think I have to change the theme in server.ini which
> would reference another theme altogether.

Changing the default template shouldn't involve changing the theme 
in server.ini. You can change the theme key 'main_template' to use a 
separate default template, or just change the global template 
'base_main' to display what you want.

Templates shouldn't care which theme is currently being used -- ID 
1, ID 2, ID 3 shouldn't matter. They just assume there's some theme 
to be used.

Chris

[Openinteract-dev] little feature request

[joseph s. <joe...@jk...>]

hello again, 

I was wondering if there are plans for the future to add a sequence to the base_theme package so when a package installs its theme there won't be a conflict with any future packages which may have chosen the same theme_id.

I'm asking because I want to change the default template, and to do that I think I have to change the theme in server.ini which would reference another theme altogether.


thanks, 

joe
-- 
joseph speigle
www.sirfsup.com
jo...@jk...
page: 377-7377 (210)

Re: [Openinteract-dev] commercial use

[Chris W. <ch...@cw...>]

joseph speigle wrote:
> hi, what is the basic use for openinteract if I wanted to develop
> a commercial package with it.  Specifically, a photo classified
> application.  I would do this using a package add-on, and am
> wondering if I'd get yelled at or sued in any way?  it would be
> nice to use openinteract because I like the code.  But if
> developing a commercial app would step on toes I'll have to go an
> alternative route.

Nobody will shout -- OI is under the same license as Perl 
(Artistic/GPL), so you can do what you like with it. But a shout-out 
in the form of a link and/or logo in any webdocs would be 
appreciated ;-)

Chris

[Openinteract-dev] commercial use

[joseph s. <joe...@jk...>]

hi,
what is the basic use for openinteract if I wanted to develop a commercial package with it.  Specifically, a photo classified application.  I would do this using a package add-on, and am wondering if I'd get yelled at or sued in any way?  it would be nice to use openinteract because I like the code.  But if developing a commercial app would step on toes I'll have to go an alternative route.  thanks.
joe
-- 
joseph speigle
www.sirfsup.com
jo...@jk...
page: 377-7377 (210)

[Openinteract-dev] OI2: validation frameworks?

[Chris W. <ch...@cw...>]

Does anyone currently use any of the CPAN validation frameworks? Or 
have you done some work comparing the different frameworks? If so, 
could you post a few thoughts about what you found useful, 
cumbersome, unnecessary, etc?

I'm looking into having hooks for input (individual variable and 
form) validation for OI2. But I've never used any of these so it's 
difficult to tease out the important threads.

In the meantime I'll post some initial ideas for validation on the 
wiki site.

Thanks,

Chris

-- 
Chris Winters (ch...@cw...)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.

[Openinteract-dev] OI2: Porting OpenInteract::CommonHandler

[Chris W. <ch...@cw...>]

Work on OpenInteract 2 is moving along very well -- updates are on 
the wiki. [1] The next big task is porting 
OpenInteract::CommonHandler to the new framework. I haven't started 
it yet but I have some fairly concrete ideas on how this might look. 
Since I don't use it as often as other folks -- yes, that's you and 
your team Andreas -- I figured it might be a good idea to see if the 
ideas make any sense.

A start of the conversation is on the wiki [2], but if people are 
interested it's probably smart to iterate through some ideas here 
before setting anything down there.

Later,

Chris

[1] 
http://openinteract.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/twiki/view/OI/OpenInteract2Roadmap

[2] 
http://openinteract.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/twiki/view/OI/OpenInteract2Common


-- 
Chris Winters (ch...@cw...)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.

Re: [Openinteract-dev] base_page problem

[Chris W. <ch...@cw...>]

joseph speigle wrote:
> ...
> THE PROBLEM when I tried to get a directory listing of a
> directory, it would append html to the listing name, and push
> that onto @locations, but further down the code, it would try
> dir.html and abort presenting a "not foudn" in the middle of the
> template in the browser. The revision for 1.22 says "Modify the
> order in which we check for certain objects: if no extension
> given, first check a page by that name and THEN the directory
> index".  However, it should still check all the $locations in the
> loop foreach my $location ( @locations ) { but in fact it aborts.

I didn't forget about this... can you try the base_page update on 
Sourceforge (1.25) and see if it works for you?

Chris

-- 
Chris Winters (ch...@cw...)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.

[Openinteract-dev] base_page revisited

[joseph s. <joe...@jk...>]

I just did a fresh install of everything the Openinteract-1.58 off sourceforge and had to change the following

(base_dir/pkg/base_page-1.24/Openinteract/Page.pm)

    my $no_extension = $location !~ /\.\(\w+\)$/;
    my $dir_request  = $location =~ m|/$|;
    # Check to see if this is directory request that corresponds to a
    # page_directory object...

    if ( $dir_request or $no_extension ) {
        $R->DEBUG && $R->scrib( 1, "Testing [$location] as a directory" );
        my $dir = eval {
            $R->page_directory->fetch_by_directory( $location, 'yes' )
        };
        if ( $@ ) {
            $R->scrib( 0, "Tried to fetch directory but got error: $@" );
        }
        if ( $dir ) {
            $R->DEBUG && $R->scrib( 1, "Directory object found ",
                                    "[$dir->{directory}]. Returning" );
            return $dir;
        }
        $R->DEBUG && $R->scrib( 1, "Directory object not found. Continuing..." );
    }
    elsif ( ! $dir_request or $no_extension ) {
        $page = eval { $R->page->fetch( $location ) };
        if ( $@ ) {
            $R->scrib( 0, "Caught error fetching [$location] as page: $@" );
        }
        elsif ( $page ) {
            return $page;
        }
    }


-- 
joseph speigle
www.sirfsup.com
jo...@jk...
page: 377-7377 (210)

[Openinteract-dev] base_page problem

[joseph s. <joe...@jk...>]

hi list,
I checked the OpenInteract-1.58 and the base_page is still v.1.24, and my problem's not solved on the sourceforge site.  I had directory listings before, but now I could only make them work by changing some of base_page's Openinteract/Page.pm stuff.  And, no, this wasn't fixed in the new version, which retains the same base_page package version and 'oi_manage upgrade' refuses to apply it.  In any event, it's not there.

A FIX:
my $no_extension = $location =~/\.\(\w+\)$/;
works but 
the 
'my $no_extension = $location !~/\.\(\w+\)$/;' which comes down doesn't.  

Note that my change allows me to browse files as well as directories, but multiple solutions are possible.

THE PROBLEM
when I tried to get a directory listing of a directory, it would append html to the listing name, and push that onto @locations, but further down the code, it would try dir.html and abort presenting a "not foudn" in the middle of the template in the browser.  
The revision for 1.22 says "Modify the order in which we check for certain objects: if no
extension given, first check a page by that name and THEN the directory index".  However, it should still check all the $locations in the loop foreach my $location ( @locations ) {
but in fact it aborts.  




thanks.

-- 
joseph speigle
www.sirfsup.com
jo...@jk...
page: 377-7377 (210)

Re: [Openinteract-dev] skip security problem in SPOPS/DBI.pm

[Chris W. <ch...@cw...>]

Peter Dragon wrote:
> In SPOPS release 0.74, SPOPS/DBI.pm recognizes skip_security = 1 as a
> setting in most methods, e.g. fetch_group(), should it be in fetch_count()
> as well ?

It sure should. It's been updated in CVS. Thanks for the pointer.

Chris

-- 
Chris Winters (ch...@cw...)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.

[Openinteract-dev] skip security problem in SPOPS/DBI.pm

[Peter D. <pet...@us...>]

In SPOPS release 0.74, SPOPS/DBI.pm recognizes skip_security = 1 as a
setting in most methods, e.g. fetch_group(), should it be in fetch_count()
as well ?

Thanks, Peter

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Re: [Openinteract-dev] SPOPS for Web App Development

[joseph s. <joe...@jk...>]

hi,
>The handler will contain
>methods and also a dispatch mechanism to determine the appropriate method
>and template to employ based on user privilege, current class and requested
>action.


he's already developed this you really should use what's already there.
I just hope you can beg them to put a PerlRequire line in their httpd.conf to let you include certain modules.  Perhaps you could install them in your home directory and then 'use' them in the startup.pl script.  I would at least ask them to do that for you.  Then if you managed to install the modules in your home directory by whatever means possible, they could be included.  It's really too much to ask you to write it all again on your own.  that, and I can't believe the sys admins there monitoring the web servers don't know how to install perl modules, that's just too hard to believe.  Especially considering they themselves are asking you to do such a thing.  Are you applying for a sysadmin job or a developer job?
joe
-- 
joseph speigle
www.sirfsup.com
jo...@jk...
page: 377-7377 (210)

Re: [Openinteract-dev] SPOPS for Web App Development

[Chris W. <ch...@cw...>]

David C. Reed wrote:
> I have some questions that I hope are germaine to this list.  i am

They are -- SPOPS doesn't have its own mailing lists. I've thought 
about it but decided we don't get enough traffic to warrant 
separating OI and SPOPS. My mind could be changed...

> developing a web-based application for a client that does typical web db app
> stuff (track records, let people view/edit/create based on group priveleges,
> etc.).  They unfortunately require that it be run on one of their servers,
> meaning that I am limited somewhat in terms of what I can put on their
> machine, and I can't use OpenInteract or Template Toolkit.  I am using SPOPS
> and a rudimentary templating module.  Is there a "best pratice" for using
> SPOPS in such a way? Specifically, where should logic be implemented and how
> should action dispatch be handled?  I am thinking of the approach of adding
> a common handler 'code_class' to each class.  The handler will contain
> methods and also a dispatch mechanism to determine the appropriate method
> and template to employ based on user privilege, current class and requested
> action.  Is there a cleaner way to do this?

I'd split apart these responsibilities as much as possible. IMO 
SPOPS should focus on moving data between objects and the database 
and adding behavior to those objects. Something else should focus on 
showing those objects to the user and allowing the user to act on them.

OpenInteract takes care of the dispatching mechanism, but it's not 
the only possiblity. CGI::Application operates on much these same 
lines, and it's pretty easy to write your own. The basic idea is 
that you have some external configuration (Perl data structure, XML 
file, database records, etc.) that map incoming URLs to a subroutine 
  or class::method call. The dispatcher will read in this 
configuration, do some initial setup (instantiate the CGI request, 
parse parameters, do authentication/authorization, etc.) and then 
pass control over to some other process which is responsible for 
generating the response.

Andy Wardley (Template Toolkit creator) wrote a great email [1] to 
the TT mailing list about what the Model-View-Controller pattern (or 
metapattern) means for web development. The key point isn't adhering 
to an MVC doctrine (which is suspect in webapps). It's separating 
these different areas. Not just so you can substitute different 
implementations -- that's nice, but it doesn't happen as often as 
some people like to say.

What it gives you is the ability to focus a tool on what it does 
best -- we don't really *need* the Template Toolkit (or any other 
templating module) to output HTML to a browse, a series of 'print' 
statements will work as well. But it allows us to develop a very 
flexible system with very simple coupling points, so (for example) 
we might find that the request-process-response model works just as 
well handling SOAP request, or incoming emails, or Jabber requests, 
or something else we haven't even heard of yet. And we don't have to 
worry about tying our framework to HTML or even a tag-based markup 
language because TT can generate any sort of text, even Postscript.

Plus, if you separate things out and in the future you *are* allowed 
to use OpenInteract, you'll have a much easier time making the 
transition ;-)

Good luck,

Chris

[1]http://lists.ourshack.com/pipermail/templates/2002-November/003974.html

-- 
Chris Winters (ch...@cw...)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.

[Openinteract-dev] SPOPS for Web App Development

[David C. R. <dr...@xo...>]

Hi,

I have some questions that I hope are germaine to this list.  i am
developing a web-based application for a client that does typical web db app
stuff (track records, let people view/edit/create based on group priveleges,
etc.).  They unfortunately require that it be run on one of their servers,
meaning that I am limited somewhat in terms of what I can put on their
machine, and I can't use OpenInteract or Template Toolkit.  I am using SPOPS
and a rudimentary templating module.  Is there a "best pratice" for using
SPOPS in such a way? Specifically, where should logic be implemented and how
should action dispatch be handled?  I am thinking of the approach of adding
a common handler 'code_class' to each class.  The handler will contain
methods and also a dispatch mechanism to determine the appropriate method
and template to employ based on user privilege, current class and requested
action.  Is there a cleaner way to do this?

Thanks,
Dave

Re: [Openinteract-dev] sql field too small in page table

[Chris W. <ch...@cw...>]

joseph speigle wrote:
> I get the following when scanning to add a page
> 
> DBD::Pg::st execute failed: ERROR: value too long for type
> character varying(30) at
> /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0//SPOPS/SQLInterface.pm line 284.
> INSERT INTO page ( author, directory, keywords, main_template,
> content_location, location, template_parse, boxes, active_on,
> mime_type, page_size, is_active, notes, title, storage,
> expires_on ) VALUES ( NULL, '/cl', NULL, NULL, NULL,
> '/cl/bzip.htm', 'no', NULL, '2003-04-05', 'x-system/x-unix;
> commands text', NULL, 'yes', NULL, NULL, 'file', '2004-04-04' )

Correction: that was the 'mime_type' field, and after scanning the 
magic file it should be extended to 50, not 40. The modified schema 
will be in the next version, out shortly.

Chris

-- 
Chris Winters (ch...@cw...)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.

Re: [Openinteract-dev] sql field too small in page table

[Chris W. <ch...@cw...>]

joseph speigle wrote:
> I get the following when scanning to add a page
> 
> DBD::Pg::st execute failed: ERROR: value too long for type
> character varying(30) at
> /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0//SPOPS/SQLInterface.pm line 284.
> INSERT INTO page ( author, directory, keywords, main_template,
> content_location, location, template_parse, boxes, active_on,
> mime_type, page_size, is_active, notes, title, storage,
> expires_on ) VALUES ( NULL, '/cl', NULL, NULL, NULL,
> '/cl/bzip.htm', 'no', NULL, '2003-04-05', 'x-system/x-unix;
> commands text', NULL, 'yes', NULL, NULL, 'file', '2004-04-04' )

Looks like the mime type 'x-system/x-unix; commands text' is too 
long. That's an interesting one... I'll look in a standard magic 
file and find the longest content type. (Should have done that a 
while ago...) Then I'll modify this table and the 'content_type' 
table with the length.

In the meantime you should be able to issue an 'alter table' 
statement and modify the length of 'content_type' to 40 or so.

Chris

-- 
Chris Winters (ch...@cw...)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.

[Openinteract-dev] sql field too small in page table

[joseph s. <joe...@jk...>]

I get the following when scanning to add a page

DBD::Pg::st execute failed: ERROR: value too long for type character varying(30) at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0//SPOPS/SQLInterface.pm line 284. INSERT INTO page ( author, directory, keywords, main_template, content_location, location, template_parse, boxes, active_on, mime_type, page_size, is_active, notes, title, storage, expires_on ) VALUES ( NULL, '/cl', NULL, NULL, NULL, '/cl/bzip.htm', 'no', NULL, '2003-04-05', 'x-system/x-unix; commands text', NULL, 'yes', NULL, NULL, 'file', '2004-04-04' ) 

joe
-- 
joseph speigle
www.sirfsup.com
jo...@jk...
page: 377-7377 (210)

[Openinteract-dev] Re: OI: Common-Handler and multiple-field ids

[Chris W. <ch...@cw...>]

(cc'd to oi-dev)

Ewa...@Be... wrote:
> on a table we're using 2 fields as an id-field. We modified the 
> spops.perl and everything works fine ... but
> 
> when using the result-Manager the produced files in the overflow
> directory shows something like that: class-->id1-->id2
> 
> When trying to retrieve records (with CommonHandler) we get no search
> result. May be we found the reason for this problem:
> 
> In the package /SPOPS/Iterator/DBI.pm the fetch_object method tries
> to fetch a record with id "id1-->id2" and not "id1,id2".
> (fetch('id1-->id2'))
> This doesn't work. Is this something which may be configured?
> At the moment we changed /SPOPS/Iterator/DBI.pm in the way that we
> substitute
> '-->' with ','

This is quite a coincidence -- two problems with exactly the same 
solution in the same week. The problem is that the ->id call is 
returning multiple values when we don't expect it.

Here's the offending line from OI::ResultsManage in the 
results_manage package:

  $out->print( join( $RECORD_SEP, $info{record_class},
                                  $item->id ), "\n" );

Since $item->id is in list context, it returns a list of IDs which 
then get join()ed by the record separator (-->). Changing it to:

  $out->print( join( $RECORD_SEP, $info{record_class},
                                  scalar( $item->id ) ), "\n" );

should take care of business. There was another use elsewhere in the 
  package that I changed also.

The updated results_manage package is up on Sourceforge. Thanks for 
the report!

Chris

-- 
Chris Winters (ch...@cw...)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.

[Openinteract-dev] Re: OI spops trouble with multiple-field ids

[damien l. <da...@ba...>]

On Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 10:34:57AM -0500, Chris Winters wrote:
> In any case, the fix will be in the next version. The problem is 
> this in OI::SPOPS line 102:
> 
>   my $row = $self->db_select(
>            { %{ $p },
>              from   => OBJECT_KEY_TABLE,
>              select => [ 'object_key' ],
>              where  => 'class = ? AND object_id = ?',
>              value  => [ ref $self, $self->id ],
>              return => 'single' });
> 
> See, $self->id is in list context, which means it returns a list 
> of your multiple keys rather than concatenating them. Easy to 
> fix: just change it to 'scalar( $self->id )' and it should work.
> 

yes this does it... also need to add the scalar() call in save_object_key() a few lines up.

thanks
damien

[Openinteract-dev] Re: OI spops trouble with multiple-field ids

[Chris W. <ch...@cw...>]

(cc'd to oi-dev)

damien leri wrote:
> on a table using an multifield object_id, there's trouble with
> object_keys table, as shown in my log here. Should the value
> for the object_id column be '8,1' or what?

I'm pretty sure it should. I actually haven't used any with 
objects in OI, which is why I never ran into this problem.

> quite possibly i've fouled up my spops conf for this class? i
> could add an auto_increment field and make the current pkey
> merely a unique one, if you think that would boost performance
> or stability... i expect less than a few thousand records in
> this table. the spops is at the end of this email.

No, your SPOPS configuration is right. The problem is with 
something OI is trying to do: create an index of all objects so 
it can normalize the keys. so instead of having a 
'class/object_id' in every table you just have an 'object_key', a 
32-character MD5 checksum. I'm probably going to get rid of this 
in the next version, or at least make it more integrated.

In any case, the fix will be in the next version. The problem is 
this in OI::SPOPS line 102:

  my $row = $self->db_select(
           { %{ $p },
             from   => OBJECT_KEY_TABLE,
             select => [ 'object_key' ],
             where  => 'class = ? AND object_id = ?',
             value  => [ ref $self, $self->id ],
             return => 'single' });

See, $self->id is in list context, which means it returns a list 
of your multiple keys rather than concatenating them. Easy to 
fix: just change it to 'scalar( $self->id )' and it should work.

You can get around it now by using a surrogate primary key 
(auto-increment, which I generally recommend anyway) or by adding 
  'skip_object_key => 1' to your SPOPS configuration.

Later,

Chris

-- 
Chris Winters (ch...@cw...)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.

Re: [Openinteract-dev] I got a fruit to blossom

[Chris W. <ch...@cw...>]

joseph speigle wrote:
> hello, I got a package to work!  I'm needless to say pretty
> excited.  Well, how good does it have to be to try and get it on
> the website?  does it need to be really fricking cool or what?
> It will within a few weeks be a rewrite of a mod_perl script to
> autoindex directories and (oh my god!) put something in the
> description column.  I want soon to create templates to allow the
> user to add and edit the displayed pages, as time is available. 
> also, I thought of just making the pm file the default
> directoryhandler, but it does need custom templates so the site
> will maintain a consistent appearance, so I want to make it into
> a package. joe

First: not to be a stinker, but were you aware of the directory 
index functionality built into the 'base_page' package? The docs in 
'doc/base_page.pod' should have everything you need to know under 
the 'DIRECTORY HANDLERS' header.

That said, if your package is useful then I'd be happy to post it! 
If you'd like to release it then I recommend adding the following in 
the wiki site:

  - Add an entry to OpenInteractPackages -- if you'd like to explain 
more about your package create a separate page for it. (I should 
probably do this for the others listed there...)
  - Add a dated entry to the top of NewsItems, and one on the 
WebHome page as well with just the package announcement.

Good luck!

Chris

-- 
Chris Winters (ch...@cw...)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.

[Openinteract-dev] I got a fruit to blossom

[joseph s. <joe...@jk...>]

hello, 
I got a package to work!  I'm needless to say pretty excited.  Well, how good does it have to be to try and get it on the website?  does it need to be really fricking cool or what?  It will within a few weeks be a rewrite of a mod_perl script to autoindex directories and (oh my god!) put something in the description column.  I want soon to create templates to allow the user to add and edit the displayed pages, as time is available.
also, I thought of just making the pm file the default directoryhandler, but it does need custom templates so the site will maintain a consistent appearance, so I want to make it into a package.
joe
-- 
joseph speigle
www.sirfsup.com
jo...@jk...
page: 877-9766 (210)