smandoli - Developer IT

Knowledge base web app -- need a demo mode

- by Smandoli

I was contracted to build an on-line knowledge base that searches and cross-references many thousands of replacement parts for a niche industry. My client furnishes this app to his customers on a subscription basis. It uses MySQL and PHP and it works great. I want to deploy it in "demo mode" to sell my skills. I want the user to see the functions, but I have to guard the data for my client. My first idea was to obfuscate the results. That's at cross-purposes with showing how well it searches. I'm considering a limit on how many searches you can perform, but that's awkward too as someone could visit every day and get more answers than we would prefer. Other posts I've found are about letting people interact with an app, but without the challenge of protecting a big knowledge base. Can you suggest an approach? (Note, I put the tag obfuscation, but not sure it applies because java code obfuscation seems to be unrelated.)

Read the article

VBA compare and sort strings with quirky characters

- by Smandoli

I am comparing text values from two DAO recordsets in MS Access. I sort on the text field, then go through both recordsets comparing the values from each. The sets are substantially different and while they're mostly alpha-numeric, spaces and symbols like hyphens and periods are very common. My program depends on predictable sorting and fool-proof comparing. But unfortunately, the sort will rank two values differently than the comparison function. StrComp is the obvious first choice: varResult = StrComp(Val_1, Val_2) RFA-300 14.9044 RFA300 14-2044 But for the two pairs above, StrComp returns a different value than one would expect based on the sort. Including vbTextCompare or vbBinaryCompare affects StrComp's result, but not so as to solve the problem. Note the values must always be compared as strings. Of course I make sure that "14-2044" and "14.9044" aren't evaluated as -2030 and ~15. That's not the cause of my problem. I learned API-based functions are more reliable for quirky texts, so I tried these: varResult = CompareString(LOCALE_SYSTEM_DEFAULT, _ SORT_STRINGSORT, strVal_2, -1, strVal_1, -1) varResult = CompareString(LOCALE_SYSTEM_DEFAULT, _ NORM_IGNOREWIDTH, strVal_2, -1, strVal_1, -1) The first one returns the opposite of StrComp. The second one returns the same as StrComp. But neither yields a result that is consistent with the sort order. (NORM_IGNOREWIDTH is probably not relevant, but I needed a place-holder substitute and it looked as good as any.) UPDATE: This is a complete rewrite of the original post, deleting all the info about why I really need this -- just take my word for it and enjoy the brevity.

Read the article

is there a Universal Model for languages?

- by Smandoli

Many programming languages share generic and even fairly universal features. For example, if you compared Java, VB6, .NET, PHP, Python, then you would find common functions such as control structures, numeric and string manipulation, etc. What has been done to define these features at a meta-language (or language-agnostic) level? UML offers a descriptive reference of software in every aspect, but the real-world focus seems to be data processes. Is UML relevant? I'm not asking "Why we don't have a single language that replaces the current plethora." We need many different tools (at least in this eon). I'm not asking that all languages fit a template -- assembly vs. compiled languages are different enough to make that unfeasible (and some folks call HTML a language, though I wouldn't). Any attempt would start with a properly narrow scope. In line with this, I wouldn't expect the model to cover even a small selection with full validity. I would expect however that such a model could be used to transpose from one language to another (with limited goals -- think jist translation).

Read the article

CodeIgniter and SimpleTest -- How to make my first test?

- by Smandoli

I'm used to web development using LAMP, PHP5, MySQL plus NetBeans with Xdebug. Now I want to improve my development, by learning how to use (A) proper testing and (B) a framework. So I have set up CodeIgniter, SimpleTest and the easy Xdebug add-in for Firefox. This is great fun because maroonbytes provided me with clear instructions and a configured setup ready for download. I am standing on the shoulders of giants, and very grateful. I've used SimpleTest a bit in the past. Here is a the kind of thing I wrote: <?php require_once('../simpletest/unit_tester.php'); require_once('../simpletest/reporter.php'); class TestOfMysqlTransaction extends UnitTestCase { function testDB_ViewTable() { $this->assertEqual(1,1); // a pseudo-test } } $test = new TestOfMysqlTransaction(); $test->run(new HtmlReporter()) ?> So I hope I know what a test looks like. What I can't figure out is where and how to put a test in my new setup. I don't see any sample tests in the maroonbytes package, and Google so far has led me to posts that assume unit testing is already functionally available. What do I do?

Read the article

CodeIgniter -- unable to use an object

- by Smandoli

THE SUMMARY: When I call .../index.php/product, I receive: Fatal error: Call to a member function get_prod_single() on a non-object in /var/www/sparts/main/controllers/product.php on line 16 The offending Line 16 is: $data['pn_oem'] = $this->product_model->get_prod_single($product_id); Looks like I don't know how to make this a working object. Can you help me? THE CODE: In my /Models folder I have product_model.php: <?php class Product_model extends Model { function Product_model() { parent::Model(); } function get_prod_single($product_id) { //This will be a DB lookup ... return 'foo'; //stub to get going } } ?> In my /controllers folder I have product.php: <?php class Product extends Controller { function Product() { parent::Controller(); } function index() { $this->load->model('Product_model'); $product_id = 113; // will get this dynamically $data['product_id'] = $product_id; $data['pn_oem'] = $this->product_model->get_prod_single($product_id); $this->load->view('prod_single', $data); } } ?>

Read the article

A step-up from TiddlyWiki that is still 100% portable?

- by Smandoli

TiddlyWiki is a great idea, brilliantly implemented. I'm using it as a portable personal "knowledge manager," and these are the prize virtues: It travels on my USB flash memory stick and runs on any computer, regardless of operating system No software installation is needed on the computer (TiddlyWiki merely uses the Internet browser) No Internet connection is needed In terms of data retrieval functionality, it mimics a relational database (use of tags and internal links) Let's say I've got a million words of prose in 4,000 tiddlers (posts). I'm still testing, but it looks like TiddlyWiki gets very slow. Is there an app like TiddlyWiki that keeps all the virtues I listed above, and allows more storage? NOTE: Separation of content and presentation would be ideal. It's nifty that TiddlyWiki has everything in a single HTML document, but it's unhelpful in many ways. I don't care if a directory of assorted docs is needed (SQLite, XML?), as long as it's functionally self-contained.

Developer IT