Programmers Sample Guide, help is on the way

SFTP Apache commons file download, upload and delete example

2013-06-17T20:56:00.000-04:00

Secure File Transfer Protocol or SFTP uses the SSH secure shell protocol to provides file access, file transfer, and file management functionalities over any reliable data stream. Apache Commons VFS provides a single API for accessing various different file systems and one of them is SFTP. Here are the examples for how to use the VFS to achieve file download, upload and delete on a remote system.

iOS programmatically create a custom UITableViewCell

2013-06-14T22:26:00.000-04:00

In our previous tutorial we learned how to create a custom UITableViewCell using a xib file. My personal preference is to define it programmatically as it takes me less time to code. In this example we basically recreate the same custom table cell view which displays our country information and a button that can be used to further drill down to say a detail screen about that specific country.

iOS custom UITableViewCell example using xib file

2013-06-12T23:50:00.000-04:00

The UITableViewCell class defines the attributes and behavior of the cells that appear in UITableView objects. The iOS SDK comes with some predefined cell styles for your most common needs but what if you need a different layout for your table row data. Well you can easily extend the UITableViewCell class to create a new custom class and initialize that with your custom xib file. In this

iOS Core Data example - CRUD operations

2013-06-09T19:11:00.000-04:00

Core Data is powerful framework, standard within the iOS SDK that simplifies the interaction with the persistent data store in an object-oriented way and the programmer doesn't have to worry about the low level interaction with the underlying database, basically simplifies the crud operations that you generally deal with when using SQL with any relational database. In core data the most important

iOS SQLite example with Create Insert Select Update and Delete operations

2013-06-03T23:41:00.000-04:00

The underlying database for iOS applications to store large amounts of data is SQLite. It is considered a de facto industry standard for lightweight embedded SQL database programming. You can use the core data framework provided in the iOS SDK to interact with the database in an abstract manner without actually going into the details how the low-level data management is implemented. The other

iOS smooth signature capture example using quadratic bezier curve

2013-05-29T23:50:00.000-04:00

Signatures are stylized scripts associating them to a given individual and primarily used for the purpose of displaying intent of that individual in regards to a given document by having his or her signature. Now with the advent of the mobile devices such as iPhone and iPad there is an everyday demand to capture individual's signature on electronic documents such as PDF and mobile applications.

iOS check for internet connection

2013-05-28T23:10:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Tony Million there is ARC and GCD Compatible Reachability Class for iOS and MacOS from the original version developed as an example by apple. All you have to do is download the zip file for the Reachability project from the GitHub repository and then copy the Reachability.h and Reachability.m into your xcode application. Don't forget to add Reachability.m to your compile sources and

Python generate CSV file from List or Dictionary

2013-05-25T00:56:00.000-04:00

CSV (Comma Separated Values) is the most common data format for one-time data export from one system to another. The original data can be in any other relational database such as DB2, MySql, SQL Server, etc. but you can easily dump that into a CSV format and pass it on. I would say before the days of XML and JSON it was the de facto format for data transport. Python makes it really easy to create

Python read CSV file into List or Dictionary example

2013-05-23T00:02:00.000-04:00

CSV (Comma Separated Values) is the most popular data format for importing and exporting databases between various systems. Because CSV doesn't have a standardized format there is always subtle differences between CSV files from different vendors such as the field separator may be TAB instead of a comma. Python CSV module tries to take care of most of these variation using either dialects and/or

Python read file line by line example

2013-05-21T22:56:00.000-04:00

Reading a text file line by line is pretty easy in python. Basically there are three steps first get a handle on the file using the open() function, then read the file line by line using either readline() or file iterator and finally use the close() method to close it and free up any system resources. But if you are processing say a sound clip or an image file then just add a 'b' to your mode,

Apache set Expiry date for javascript files and images

2013-05-20T22:48:00.000-04:00

I started looking into page caching this after running Google Page Speed Insights to make my website load faster and one of the recommendations was "Specify an expiration at least one week in the future for the following resources". If your web server is apache then you can easily configure this in the httpd.conf file using the Apache module mod_expires, this will allow the browsers to cache

Android generate PDF using iText and print to Bluetooth printer example

2013-05-13T23:57:00.002-04:00

In this example we are trying to achieve two things, first and foremost how to create a PDF programmtically from your android application data and second print it using a bluetooth printer so that we don't have to rely on internet connectivity. For the purpose of generating a PDF this tutorial is using iText for Android which is a licensed version of iText with reduced file size and functionality

Android programmatically update application when a new version is available

2013-05-09T00:06:00.000-04:00

If you have apps that are hosted on your server and as time passes you make enhancements, fix bugs, etc. then comes the question how can I alert all my app users that a newer version is out there and make it real easy for them to download. You can email all your users with the link to the new version, that will be very cumbersome. Well that process needs to be built right into the app you deploy

iOS HTTP request and XML parsing example

2013-05-05T20:37:00.000-04:00

NSXMLParser is a SAX parser included by default in the iOS. Its pretty straight forward to use if you are familiar with any other SAX parsers. Basically it is a event driven process where as it comes across certain parts of the XML document that it will send notification to a specific function where you can take the necessary action to save that to either memory or SQLite database. Here we get

SQL User Defined Functions in iSeries(AS400)

2013-05-04T15:52:00.000-04:00

SQL comes with a lot of standard functions such as finding the maximum, minimum or distinct values for a column within a database table. But there comes a time when you wish that if you had that special function that will make your programming logic a piece of cake then you must take matters into your own hand and create your own SQL function. In this tutorial we are going to learn how to create

Objective C String concatenation example

2013-04-29T22:36:00.000-04:00

Well in any programming language this is considered one of important string manipulation functions and as simple as adding a plus sign between the two strings. Guess what its not that easy in Objective C, here is how to achieve string concatenation when using either NSString or NSMutableString classes. #import int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) { @

iOS HTTP request and JSON parsing example

2013-04-23T23:41:00.000-04:00

This is a very basic requirement when you are doing mobile apps to get data from a remote server and then either display or save it for future use. There are two things that we need to accomplish, first make an HTTP request from the app and then parse the JSON response. The HTTP request is done using the NSURLConnection object and the JSON parsing is done with the help of NSJSONSerialization

Android display application version name programmatically

2013-04-16T23:21:00.000-04:00

You can get the app version from the PackageInfo class which contains all of the information collected from AndroidManifest.xml file. Check the link below for API reference to the PackageInfo class http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/pm/PackageInfo.html Application Manifest file

Android automatically detect internet connection status

2013-04-10T23:16:00.000-04:00

If you have an android application that needs to sync data with a backend server but doesn't need the internet to be available all the time for it to work then you must know at all times whether your app has access to internet or not. As soon as you have internet connection you can get latest data from the server or post any changes saved in your app using HTTP service. In this example we extend

Convert custom iOS object to JSON string

2013-04-08T23:28:00.000-04:00

Well if you have done programming in Java you will find that its surprisingly difficult in Objective C to convert your Objects to JSON string. The iOS SDK does provide the NSJSONSerialization class so that you can convert Foundation objects to JSON but it comes with limitations. An object that may be converted to JSON must have the following properties The top level object is an NSArray or

iOS Table View Example

2013-04-04T23:49:00.000-04:00

UITableView class is used for display and editing List data similar to a ListView in Android. A table view is made up of zero or more sections, each with its own rows. Sections are identified by their index number within the table view, and rows are identified by their index number within a section. Any section can optionally be preceded by a section header, and optionally be followed by a

Android common menu options for multiple activities

2013-04-02T23:39:00.000-04:00

Android menu options provide user with actions and other options to choose from the action bar of the screen. Some of these actions are common to all the activities for your application, so instead of creating them in each of your activities you can create a BaseActivity that extends the Activity class and does all your menu processing. Then you can extend then base activity class in your

Find and Replace characters in IFS file on iSeries(AS400)

2013-03-23T12:12:00.000-04:00

Lets say you received a XML, CSV, TXT or any other type of file in the IFS directory and before processing the file and exporting the data to a DB2 database you want to manipulate it. Its very easy with the help of QSHELL sed command, here is how > echo 'Today is Monday' | sed "s/Mon/Sun/" Today is Sunday $ In the above example we are taking a string and

Android SimpleCursorAdapter alternate Row Color example

2013-03-18T00:30:00.000-04:00

To change the background color of a row in ListView you have to use a custom Adapter. In this example we display a basic ListView from SQLite database using the SimpleCursorAdapter which by default doesn't have the zebra stripes on the rows. So to achieve our alternate colors for each row we extend the SimpleCursorAdapter to create a custom class and override the getView method. Source