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About

user554629 — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:33:47 PDT

Dick Dunbar is an escalation engineer for the Oracle Business Intelligence product (obiee). I live and work in Santa Cruz, California. The tips I'll be sharing on this blog have been collected from multiple customer incidents.
I'll explain the techniques I use to detect, avoid, and repair obiee problems reported to Oracle.

I've been collecting these issues since 2003 when I was an IBM onsite support engineer to Siebel.
The first few entries will come quite slowly as I struggle to find the "proper voice" to explain common technical issues that relate directly to obiee.

I believe the best documentation is read and followed by a machine ( executable scripts); few of us have the time to read, understand and implement everything related to our work.

These are my own views, not necessarily the views of Oracle.

満を持して登場!!　Intel Xeon E5-2600搭載 Sun x86 M3 サーバー

user13138700 — Thu, 17 May 2012 05:44:57 PDT

　既にアナウンスされて一月経過している訳ですが、、、さる 2012年4月10日に Intel Xeon processor E5-2600搭載「Sun x86」　M3 サーバーがアナウンスされました。

そして、昨日の2012年5月16日に「Sun x86」 M3 サーバー製品群の国内提供が開始されました！！。

　今回、Oracleから出荷が開始された新型「Sun x86」サーバー群は Intel の Romly プラットフォームアーキテクチャですので、他社がリリースしている E5-2600 プラットフォームと同じだろう？！っていうかどこも x86 サーバーについては基本 HW は同じ？っと思われる方が多いと思います。

　しかーし、今回出荷開始された「Sun x86」 M3 サーバーの中でも Sun Fire X4170 M3/Sun Fire X4270 M3 はちょっと違います。

　それは、Oracle のエンジニアリングが LVDIMM(メモリ) で Intel の　POR (Plan-of-Record) に比べてより低い消費電力で高いパフォーマンス (DDR3-1600)* を提供することを可能にした点です。
　< *メモリのクロックは Processor の型番とメモリのランクに依存します >

　この Oracle 独自のエンハンスメントによって、他社よりも高いアプリケーションパフォーマンスと省電力性が提供できることをサーバーアーキテクチャの点で可能にしています。当然のことながら、オラクルのデータベース、ミドルウェア、業務アプリケーションに最適化することにより、高い性能と信頼性を提供します。

　また、通信事業者向け機器の仕様規定で最高レベルの「NEBS Level 3」の認定を受ける、電源安定性、電磁波放射、耐震性など安定運用に関わる高い水準を満たす Netra シリーズもありますので、選択肢はさらに広がります。

　そういった点で x86 サーバーのコストパフォーマンスや通信事業者様向け環境仕様にご興味がある方は是非、Oracle の「Sun x86」 M3 サーバー群をご検討いただきたいと思います。

　当然、Bladeタイプもありますのでこちらもよろしくです。

　M3 製品群を代表して Sun Fire X4170 M3/Sun Fire X4270 M3 の基本仕様を記載しておきます。

< Sun Fire X4170 M3 サーバー : 3タイプ >

Sun Fire X4170 M3 サーバー基本仕様

Computing
- 2 x Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-2600
- 16 x DDR3-1600/1066 DIMM (Max 512 GB : 32GB DIMM 使用時)
I/O and Storage
- 4 x PCIe 3.0 スロット ( Slot4 : インターナル用 )
- SAS-2 & SATA-2 HDD/SSD ならびに DVD Drive の組み合わせは3タイプ（上記イメージ参照）
- 6 x USB 2.0 ポート ( 2x フロント, 2x インターナル, x2 リア )
- 4 x 10Gb Ethernet ポート
可用性
- ホットスプラグ対応ディスク
- HW RAID 0,1,5,6,10,50,60 (w/ HBA)
- ホットスワップ対応 2N(1+1) 電源, 600W
- ホットスワップ対応 N+1 ファン
管理
- Oracle ILOM Service Processor 3.1
- Solaris, Linux, OVM, Windows, VMWare
- OHMP 2.2.1

< Sun Fire X4270 M3 サーバー : 3タイプ >

Sun Fire X4270 M3 サーバー基本仕様

Computing
- 2 x Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-2600
- 16 x DDR3-1600/1066 DIMM (Max 256 GB : 16GB DIMM 使用時)
I/O and Storage
- 6 x PCIe 3.0 スロット
- SAS-2 & SATA-2 HDD/SSD ならびに DVD Drive の組み合わせは3タイプ（上記イメージ参照）
- 2 x 2.5” SAS-2 & SATA-2 リア HDD/SSD 搭載 (DVD-Drive無しのタイプ)
- 6 x USB 2.0 ポート ( 2x フロント, 2x インターナル, x2 リア )
- 4 x 10Gb Ethernet ポート
可用性
- ホットスプラグ対応ディスク
- HW RAID 0,1,5,6,10,50,60 (w/ HBA)
- ホットスワップ対応 2N(1+1) 電源, 1000W
- ホットスワップ対応 N+1 ファン
管理
- Oracle ILOM Service Processor 3.1
- Solaris, Linux, OVM, Windows, VMWare
- OHMP 2.2.1

USの製品ページはこちら。

New Marketing Kits available

Cinzia Mascanzoni — Thu, 17 May 2012 05:16:48 PDT

Invite your partners to check out these new and updated marketing kits to help generate sales around Oracle's solutions.

Help your Resellers accelerate their Engineered Systems Momentum with an Exalogic specialization

Cinzia Mascanzoni — Thu, 17 May 2012 04:56:22 PDT

Exalogic is a secret weapon in driving optimized performance – especially in conjunction with Exadata for a double-X factor – around all of Oracle’s applications and migration to Fusion applications. Please consider asking your resellers to think about expanding their engineered systems capabilities by adding an Exalogic specialization to their capabilities. To learn more go here.

Thursday Thought - Busy busy busy

Scott Wesley — Thu, 17 May 2012 05:50:23 PDT

Over the next month or so, my posts may slow down a touch.

One exciting reason involves this little device pictured. I won't let too much out of the bag just yet, but an opportunity presented itself and I just had to take it.

This means I need to start prioritising a few things.

I've been trying to do a technical post every Wednesday, and this has been assisted by a flurry of posts I wrote earlier in the year that I scheduled over the weeks, with the occasional scheduling mistake - a couple of posts per day. The scheduling interface could be better, but I won't complain.

Unfortunately, these pre-written posts are drying up, I have plenty of e-mails tagged ready to write about, but the task involving the pictured device will take priority. When I get ahead on that schedule, I'll make sure my presentations for the conferences this year are on track, then I'll write some more posts - because I'm enjoying it quite a lot, and I'm also finding my own blog quite useful as a self-reference. It seems the quickest way to find information is to search where you now exactly how/where to look!

Further down on the list, I also want to re-design my blog re-design, especially after following what that Jeff Smith has been up to recently. I would like to ease the clutter and modernise a little more.

Oh, and I have my regular day job, not like some people ;-)

I'll also probably be somewhat quiet in the social media arena for a while. Partially to limit the consumption of information and keep focus, and (fortunately for me) I'll be on staggered holidays over the next month.

I hope all of you aren't working too hard, and I'll see you on the other side.

Scott.

An article suggestion from PacktPub.com

sbhoracle — Thu, 17 May 2012 05:23:49 PDT

Dear All All Packt publishers have extracted a chapter of my book as an article. PL/SQL: Using Collections The Oracle Advanced PL/SQL Developer Professional Guide helps you master advanced PL/SQL concepts. Besides the clear and precise explanation on advanced topics, it also contains example code and demonstrations, which gives a sense of application and usage … Continue reading »

jQuery Support

Petr — Thu, 17 May 2012 03:59:50 PDT

In one my post I mentioned that I work on the new JavaScript editor. Today I would like to show a few pictures from new jQuery support.

The code completion for jQuery methods with documentation:

The code completion for jQuery methods works also in a chain of methods:

If you invoke the code completion in argument place of a jQuery method, then the code completion offers html tags:

attributes of a tag:

css elements (rules, classes) that are used in the project

and selectors with their documentation.

The code completion doesn't work only for one selector, but you can use it for defining more complex selectors.

All the described functionality is available in a build from javascript2 branch that you can download from our continual build server. I hope that the new JavaScript editor we will be able to put into trunk soon.

Basic Steps to Create an Application Engine in PeopleSoft

digitaleagle — Thu, 17 May 2012 04:58:45 PDT

In reviewing my statistics, I found that one common search was “basics steps to create an appengine in PeopleSoft”. I hope the person(s) found what they were looking for on my blog. Nonetheless, that gave me the idea to write a simple overview on creating a new Application Engine program.

This post can’t cover everythinkg but I do plan to cover:

Creating a new Application Engine definition
Setting program properties
Understanding program flow
Inserting new sections, steps, and actions
Loops/logic
State records
Adding programs to projects
Where to go from here

Creating a new Application Engine Definition

Application Engine programs are definitions that are created and edited within Application Designer. So, open Application Designer and log in. Next, either use the File > New menu, press Ctrl + N, or click on the “New” icon on the toolbar.

File > New / Ctrl + N:

New icon on the toolbar:

After you do that, you should get a New dialog. There is where you tell Application Designer what type of new object you want to create. From here, you will want to choose the “App Engine Program” object type.

This should give you a new Application Engine program window:

You probably want to save your program as you go. You can use File > Save or Ctrl + S or the Save icon on the toolbar. The first save will prompt you for a name for your new program:

Settings Program Properties

The first thing you need to do is set your properties. If nothing else, you need to check the “Disable Restart” button. So, click on the properties button on the toolbar.

On the first tab of the properties, you should enter a general description of your program. In the comments area, you want to describe in more detail what your program does. You should also enter the date, author, and description of changes to the program throughout it’s lifetime.

Read on for more information about State Records later, but the State Records tab is where you connect the state record with your program.

This is the most important property to set. On the fourth tab, make sure to check the disable restart option. In my opinion, this should be default. I don’t have room to go into all of the reasons, but let’s just say that in order to make a program restartable, you need to make several design decisions first. If you want your program restartable, get it running first, check that your design is restartable, and then, come back here and uncheck the disable restart option.

Understanding Program Flow

The first that you need to understand is what the parts mean and how it runs each piece. So, here are the parts:

Program: a complete application (or a library of functions)
Section: like a function in a regular language
Step: a single task; like a line of code in a regular language
Action: a single action; like a clause in a regular language

The most important thing to understand is that the program starts at the first step in the “MAIN” section. It runs to the last step of the MAIN section in sequence. At the last step, the program is done. The other sections do not run unless they are explicitly called with a “Call Section” action.

Don’t let the names of the steps confuse you. The name can be anything. The step sequence number (circled below) is what controls the order of the steps. If you’re not careful, the step names can confuse you. In the following example, step02 runs first before step01.

Also, you can’t control the order of the actions. You should have only one action per step unless you are doing looping. If you do insert two actions into the same step, you can hit the refresh button on the toolbar and it will rearrange the actions in the order in which they will execute.

Inserting New Sections, Steps, and Actions

These three buttons on the toolbar insert new sections, steps, and actions (respectively). You can also use the insert menu.

The part of the program you have selected is significant when inserting a new part. When inserting a section, you used to have to select the previous section. Also, the order of the sections does not matter, so once you hit the Refresh button it will alphabetize them by their name. (Remember sections run in the order they are called from MAIN.)

To insert a step, select the step before, and it will insert the new step after what you have selected. The program will never change the order of the steps. If you want to reorder them, you have to cut and paste them in the new location.

To insert an action, select the action or step before, and it will insert the new action afterward. Again, remember that you can’t control the order of the actions. After you insert the action, you will need to change the type in the drop down:

For most of the actions, you will want to double click on the grey area of the action and open the PeopleCode or SQL editor. This is what defines exactly what the action does.

Loops/Logic

Complex logic is best done inside of PeopleCode steps. Note that you can have an App Engine program with a single PeopleCode step/action. The PeopleCode can do all of the work for you.

That being said, you can do some logic flow with looping and such in the App Engine itself. This is accomplished with the following action types:

Do Select: like a for loop, loops through a set of rows
Do While: like a while loop
Do When: like an if statement
Call Section: branches to another section

First, let’s talk about Do Select. It is compared to a “for” loop in other programming languages. Really, it is looping through a result set of rows returned by a select statement. So, you’ll define a SQL statement for the Do Select action. The program will execute the statement and execute the following actions in the step for each row returned.

Keep in mind that you can only have one of each action type with each step. If you need to execute two SQL statements for each row, you will have to create a new section with those SQL actions and use a Call Section with your Do Select.

Next, the Do While loop will go until no rows are returned. It is similar to the Do Select except that it executes the SQL statement every iteration. The actions following it are executed when the SQL statement returns 1 or more rows. Also, note that the actions are executed once for each time the select statement is run no matter how many rows are returned.

Now, the Do When action is like an If statement. Basically, if the select statement returns a row, that’s true. If no rows result, it’s false. So, if the Do When select statement returns a row or more, it executes the action. If no rows are returned, it moves on to the next Step without running any more actions in the current step.

Finally, the Call Section action is simple: it just runs all the steps in the selected section and comes back to the next step.

State Records

Now, you have the program flow mastered, but you need to know how to pass information between the steps. The State Record is your tool. If you are familiar with COBOL, the state record is like the working storage area on a COBOL program. Or, you could say that the state record is the variables for the App Engine program.

So, to create a state record, you just need to create a new record with a name that ends with “AET”. You can create a new record the same way as you created the App Engine definition.

In your new record, you need to add at least three fields: PROCESS_INSTANCE, RUN_CNTRL_ID, and OPRID. You can use the Insert > Fields menu to add fields. The PROCESS_INSTANCE should be a key.

Next, on the record type tab, you should either select Derived/Work or you should select SQL Table. If you choose SQL Table, you will need to go through the Build process when you create and each time you change the record. If you use Derived/Work, you may loose the information in the state record when the program commits (which is no problem if the only commit you have is at the end).

Now, when you save it, make sure that you add the “AET” to the end of the name. You will not be able to select it on the State Record screen unless it is named appropriately.

Once you have the state record saved, you need to connect it to the App Engine program. To do so, open the App Engine properties and go to the State Record tab. Enter the name of the state record in the search box, click the “Get List” button, select the record in the “Record List”, and finally click the “Add” button.

Finally, we can use our state record in our program. With SQL statements, we can use two different meta-sql commands:

%Select: loads a value selected from the database into the state record
%Bind: places a value from the state record into a SQL statement

For example, the %Select in this statement will read the EMPLID returned by the select statement and place it in the state record. Because this is a Do Select, it will fetch each row and run the rest of the actions in the step for each row. When the action runs the first time, the EMPLID field in the state record will have the EMPLID from the first row as the actions run. The state record will have the EMPLID from row 2 as the actions run the second time, and so on.

This next example uses %Bind to pull the value from the state record and insert it into a staging table.

Also, in PeopleCode steps, you can refer to the state record with the Record.Field syntax. If you are familiar with PeopleCode on a page, you understand the buffer. The buffer for a PeopleCode program in App Engine is your state record, and you access them as if they were in the buffer.

Running/Testing

The easiest, quickest way to test your new program is to run it from Application Designer. When you have the main App Engine window active, you can click the Run button. You can also use the Edit > Run Program… menu.

This opens the Run Dialog window. You want to make sure that you select Output Log to File. If you don’t, the window will close and you won’t be able to see any of the output. I also uncheck the Run Minimized option so that I can see the window open and close more easily. Pay attention to the Log File Name because the first thing you want to do when it is done is view the output.

You will eventually want to set most programs up to run online from a Run Control. Creating a run control is outside of the scope of this post, but here are some thoughts that might help you toward that direction:

You will need to create a page with the process scheduler sub page on it and a component containing the page.
You will need to create a Process definition where the Process Type is application engine and the name is the same name as your program.
You will need to enter the new component name on the Process Definition and select a Process Group that you have access to.
When your program starts, PeopleTools will automatically populate the Process Instance, Operator ID, and Run Control ID fields for you.
One of the first steps in your program will be to select the parameters from your run control page into your state record. You will use the Run Control ID and Operator ID that is pre-populated to get the correct values.

Adding Programs to Projects

As you create your program, you should be adding it to a project. This ensures that once you have it working, you can easily migrate it to your test environment and eventually to production. The catch is that the program has different parts that must be inserted individually. The program as a whole must be in the project. Each section must go into the project, as well as each individual SQL or PeopleCode program.

You run into problems when you miss a part. App Designer cannot migrate a child definition if the parent definition does not exist in the target. For example, you can’t migrate any sections if the parent App Engine program does not exist in your target environment. You can’t migrate a Do Select SQL statement if the section with the parent step/action does not exist in the target.

As you go, I recommend using the F7 key to insert everything your create or change as you do it. This ensures you don’t forget anything. When you create a new section, you can right click on the section and insert it into the project:

Assuming you want all of the program and its parts in your project, you can use the insert related definitions option. Remember, you only want to do this when you created the program by yourself. If you only modified some of the parts, you only want the parts in your project that you actually changed. To, use the option, press Ctrl + F7 or use the Insert > Definitions Into Project. Before you insert the program into the project, highlight all of the Related Definitions.

Where To Go From Here

Here are some other articles that I have written that might be helpful:

Step-by-Step: App Engine for Testing PeopleCode
PeopleTools Tip: App Engine Restart (If you forget to check Disable Restart)

Here are some other places you might want to look as well:

Database Management Packs: new Demo now available

Javier Puerta — Thu, 17 May 2012 03:45:02 PDT

New Enterprise Manager 12c Database Management Packs Demo is now available

The EM PM team and DSS are pleased to announce the availability of a new demo environment: EM 12c DB Packs Demo Environment. This demo environment joins other previously available EM12c demo environments including the EM12c Grand Tour environment, DB Lifecycle Management environment, and SOA and BTM Management with EM12c Demo Environment.

This latest demo environment showcases key capabilities introduced in Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c and Database 11g R2 in addition to the existing database manageability features from prior releases. This demo provides complete access to backend servers and thereby enables the users to customize the demo setup per their needs.

This demo features the following products:

Diagnostics Pack
Tuning Pack
Real Application Testing
Data Masking Pack
Test Data Management Pack

The target audiences are application developers, IT managers and database administrators.

Demo Highlights

This demo highlights the following new additions and capabilities for database management in a single integrated demo environment while retaining the option to demonstrate individual features or products to the customers:

Database Diagnostics and Tuning Packs

ASH Analytics - a new tool to explore the ASH data that allows the administrator to rollup, drilldown, and slice or dice performance data across various performance dimensions.
Real-Time ADDM – adds the ability to analyze problems in unresponsive or hung databases.
Compare Period ADDM – provides the capability to compare performance across two AWR time periods.

Real Application Testing

Secure Testing – integration of Real Application Testing with Data Masking enables users to seamlessly perform testing in a manner compliant to data privacy regulations.
SPA Optimizer Statistics Refresh Validation – allows you to highlight that SPA can be used for day-to-day performance tuning activities such as Optimizer Statistics refresh validation.

Data Masking and Test Data Management Packs

Application Data Modeling – a marquee feature that automatically helps discovers data relationships and builds an Application Data Model to drive other test data operations.
Sensitive Data Discovery – enables automatic discovery of sensitive data in databases including cases where referential and application integrity is to be maintained
Key-Based Reversible Masking – allows masked data to be reverted to original values using the key used for masking, useful when validating testing done by third parties.
Data Subsetting – reduces storage costs and improves developer productivity in test environments through automated and flexible data subsetting solution.

Oracle Demonstration Services system usage is intended to provide environments for qualified OPN members to deliver demonstrations of Oracle's technology and applications products. Learn more about how to access Oracle Demonstration Services for Partners.

34-bit and 64-bit JDK for ODI 11g installation on W2K8 64-bit OS

Maria Gyurova — Thu, 17 May 2012 03:15:36 PDT

This post is about to quickly refer to one of the most common trick you must know when you install ODI 11g on Windows Server 2008 64 bit OS.

64-bit JDK is just fine but once you start ODI 11g Studio from the same machine you will get “Oracle ODI 11g Unable to launch the Java Virtual Machine Located at path …”:

This is because ODI 11g Studio client tool works only with 32-bit JDK. The workaround is to edit $ODI_HOME\oracledi\client\odi\bin\odi.conf and point SetJavaHome to the 32-bit path.

You also can have a look here.

Cheers,

Maria

Oracle トレーニング・オンデマンド(日本語版)　新タイトルがリリースされます

M.Morozumi — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:45:45 PDT

Oracle トレーニング・オンデマンドの新タイトルリリース予告です！

下記新タイトルコースが間もなくリリースされます。

教室と全く同じ演習環境付きハイブリッドクラウド研修サービス　Oracleトレーニング・オンデマンドをいち早く体感してください。

・　Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11g R2: クラスタ&ASM管理
・　Oracle Database 11g R2: RAC管理

Oracle トレーニング・オンデマンド ~ビデオコンテンツを演習環境で確認しながら理解する新世代のハイブリッドクラウド研修サービス登場！~

M.Morozumi — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:37:23 PDT

2012年6月1日より教室と全く同じ演習環境付きハイブリッドクラウド研修サービス　Oracleトレーニング・オンデマンドを新しくリリースいたします。

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ハイブリッドクラウド研修サービス Oracle トレーニング・オンデマンドの特長

3か月間何処でも教室と同じ演習環境予約ができるサービス
演習付きコースについては、予約した演習環境を利用して、実際に演習を行うことができます。演習環境は、連続する5日間（お1人様1回のみ）ご利用頂けます。
実際のクラスをそのまま、丸ごと収録
実際の講義をそのまま収録しているため、TopインストラクタならではのTips が、教室に行かなくても受講できます。収録機材はフルハイビジョン。講師デモ等によって視覚的にもより理解しやすいコンテンツとなっております。
インストラクタによるQ&A
担当インストラクタより質問の回答させていただきます。
（※コースと直接関係のないご質問にはお答えしかねますので、予めご了承ください。）
eKit、電子修了証、アンケート
PDF形式の電子教材はアクセス期間中いつでもダウンロード可能。またコースを履修された証明として、電子修了証をご利用いただけます。また教室でのアンケートと同様、お客様のご感想をフィードバック頂けます。頂きましたアンケート内容は、今後のサービス品質の向上に役立たせていただきます。

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Oracle トレーニング・オンデマンドの詳細、申し込み

*ご注意：サービスへのアクセス期間は3か月間となります。以後の延長(3か月間)は各コンテンツ定価の50%にて承ります。

認定資格試験模擬問題にチャレンジ! 【Silverレベル】 vol.9

M.Morozumi — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:31:37 PDT

オラクルユニバーシティが過去に取り上げた認定資格試験の模擬問題を取り上げていきたいと思います。腕試しにぜひチャレンジしてみてください。

今回はORACLE MASTER Silver Oracle Database 11gレベルの問題として下記をピックアップしました。

-------------------------------
模擬問題：

表領域およびその内容が不要になった場合は、その表領域および内容（表領域に含まれるセグメント）をデータベースから削除できます。（）を使用している場合は、基礎となるオペレーティング・システム・ファイルも削除されます。

（）に該当する用語を下記の選択肢から1つ選んでください。

選択肢

Optimal Flexible Architecture（OFA）
Oracle Managed Files (OMF)
いずれの選択肢も該当しない

Meet the MySQL Experts Podcast: MySQL Replication Global Transaction Identifiers & HA Utilities

Mat Keep — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:29:05 PDT

In the latest episode of our “Meet The MySQL Experts” podcast, Luis Soares, Engineering Manager of MySQL Replication discusses the new Global Transaction Identifiers (GTIDs) that are part of the latest MySQL 5.6 Development Release. We are also joined by Chuck Bell who discusses how the new MySQL HA utilities use GTIDs to create a self-healing replication topology.

In the podcast, we cover how GTIDs and the HA utilities are implemented, how they are configured and considerations for their use.

You can also learn more from Luis’ blog on GTIDs in MySQL 5.6 and Chuck’s blog on the HA utilities.

Of course, GTIDs are just one of the major new features of MySQL replication. For a complete overview, take a look at our DevZone article: MySQL 5.6 Replication - Enabling the Next Generation of Web & Cloud Services.

You can try out MySQL 5.6 and GTIDs by downloading the Development Release (select Development Release tab)

Enjoy the GTID podcast and let us know what topics you would like covered in future podcasts! Also check out the library of Meet the MySQL Experts podcasts

How can I learn ADF on line?

Grant Ronald — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:21:33 PDT

So you want to learn ADF, and you want to learn ADF online.

I've blogged in the past about the wealth of material online for learning ADF. Infact, there is so much content available, we have a 10 minute video just explaining where that content exits!

However, sometimes nothing beats instructor lead training. Oracle University has a number of live courses which you can attend, but sometimes travel restrictions can make that option difficult. So what if the trainer could come to you, whenever you require? Well now you have the option. OU have released Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g: Build Applications with ADF I TOD (Training On Demand), which brings a "live" class and instructor, direct to your desktop. This way you can learn JDeveloper and ADF at your own pace, from your own home or office, without the cost and hassle of travel/hotel/costs.

So, no excuses for getting skilled up in ADF then!

Hyperlink for FreeMarker

Geertjan — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:17:30 PDT

Now that there's syntax coloring for FreeMarker, let's take a look at hyperlink support:

So, when there's an import statement, you can hold down the Ctrl key, and move the mouse over the file reference. When you do so, you automatically see a tooltip. The tooltip can be formatted via HTML, to create effects such as this:

You also see a hyperlink. Click the hyperlink and the referenced file opens.

For the first time I used org.netbeans.lib.editor.hyperlink.spi.HyperlinkProviderExt, which I learned about from reading some NetBeans sources. The main thing it does for me is give me access to the tooltip.

Here's all the code:

import java.io.File;
import java.util.EnumSet;
import java.util.Set;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
import javax.swing.text.BadLocationException;
import javax.swing.text.Document;
import org.netbeans.api.editor.mimelookup.MimeRegistration;
import org.netbeans.lib.editor.hyperlink.spi.HyperlinkProviderExt;
import org.netbeans.lib.editor.hyperlink.spi.HyperlinkType;
import org.openide.awt.StatusDisplayer;
import org.openide.cookies.OpenCookie;
import org.openide.filesystems.FileObject;
import org.openide.filesystems.FileUtil;
import org.openide.loaders.DataObject;
import org.openide.loaders.DataObjectNotFoundException;
import org.openide.util.Exceptions;

@MimeRegistration(mimeType = "text/x-ftl", service = HyperlinkProviderExt.class)
public class FTLHyperlinkProvider implements HyperlinkProviderExt {
 
    private int startOffset, endOffset;
    private String identifier = ".*\\<#import (.*?) ";
 
    @Override
    public Set<HyperlinkType> getSupportedHyperlinkTypes() {
        return EnumSet.of(HyperlinkType.GO_TO_DECLARATION);
    }
 
    @Override
    public boolean isHyperlinkPoint(Document doc, int offset, HyperlinkType type) {
        return getHyperlinkSpan(doc, offset, type) != null;
    }
 
    @Override
    public int[] getHyperlinkSpan(Document doc, int offset, HyperlinkType type) {
        return getIdentifierSpan(doc, offset);
    }
 
    @Override
    public String getTooltipText(Document doc, int offset, HyperlinkType type) {
        String text = null;
        try {
            text = doc.getText(startOffset, endOffset - startOffset);
        } catch (BadLocationException ex) {
            Exceptions.printStackTrace(ex);
        }
        return "Click to open " + text;
    }
 
    @Override
    public void performClickAction(Document doc, int offset, HyperlinkType ht) {
        try {
            String text = doc.getText(startOffset, endOffset - startOffset);
            FileObject fo = getFileObject(doc);
            String pathToFileToOpen = fo.getParent().getPath()+text;
            File  fileToOpen = FileUtil.normalizeFile(new File(pathToFileToOpen));
            if (fileToOpen.exists()) {
                try {
                    FileObject foToOpen = FileUtil.toFileObject(fileToOpen);
                    DataObject.find(foToOpen).getLookup().lookup(OpenCookie.class).open();
                } catch (DataObjectNotFoundException ex) {
                    Exceptions.printStackTrace(ex);
                }
            } else {
                StatusDisplayer.getDefault().setStatusText(fileToOpen.getName() + " doesn't exist!");
            }
        } catch (BadLocationException ex) {
            Exceptions.printStackTrace(ex);
        }
    }
 
    private static FileObject getFileObject(Document doc) {
        DataObject od = (DataObject) doc.getProperty(Document.StreamDescriptionProperty);
        return od != null ? od.getPrimaryFile() : null;
    }
 
    private int[] getIdentifierSpan(Document doc, int offset) {
        Matcher matcher = null;
        try {
            matcher = Pattern.compile(identifier).matcher(doc.getText(0, doc.getLength()));
        } catch (BadLocationException ex) {
            Exceptions.printStackTrace(ex);
        }
        while (matcher.find()) {
            startOffset = matcher.start() + 10;
            endOffset = matcher.end() - 2;
            if (offset == startOffset) {
                try {
                    String text = doc.getText(startOffset, endOffset - startOffset);
                    return new int[]{offset, offset + text.length()};
                } catch (BadLocationException ex) {
                    Exceptions.printStackTrace(ex);
                }
            }
        }
        return null;
    }
 
}

The final method above would be better like this:

private int[] getIdentifierSpan(Document doc, int offset) {
    TokenHierarchy<?> th = TokenHierarchy.get(doc);
    TokenSequence ts = th.tokenSequence(Language.find("text/x-ftl"));
    if (ts == null) {
        return null;
    }
    ts.move(offset);
    if (!ts.moveNext()) {
        return null;
    }
    Token t = ts.token();
    if (t.id().name().equals("STRING_LITERAL")) {
        //Correction for quotation marks around the token:
        startOffset = ts.offset() + 1;
        endOffset = ts.offset() + t.length() - 1;
        //Check that the previous token was an import statement,
        //otherwise we don't want our string literal hyperlinked:
        ts.movePrevious();
        Token prevToken = ts.token();
        if (prevToken.id().name().equals("IMPORT")) {
            return new int[]{startOffset, endOffset};
        } else {
            return null;
        }
    }
    return null;
}

Thanks to NetBeans Dream Team member Emilian Bold for some advice and insights into this scenario, which is based on Hyperlink in a Plain Text File.

At this point, would be good to get a prioritized list of requirements from FreeMarker users out there.

Index Sizing

Jonathan Lewis — Thu, 17 May 2012 01:53:16 PDT

I was in a discussion recently about how to estimate the size of a bitmap index before you build it, and why it’s much harder to do this for bitmap indexes than it is for B-tree indexes. Here’s what I wrote in “Practical Oracle 8i”:

An interesting feature of bitmap indexes is that it is rather hard to predict how large the index segment will be. The size of a b-tree index is based very closely on the number of rows and the typical size of the entries in the index column. The size of a bitmap index is dictated by a fairly small number of bit-strings which may have been compressed to some degree depending upon the number of consecutive 1’s and 0’s. To pick an extreme example, imagine a table of one million rows that has one column that may contain one of eight values ‘A’ to ‘H’ say, which has been generated in one of of the two following extreme patterns:

All the rows for a given value appear together, so scanning down the table we get 125,000 rows with ‘A’ followed by 125,000 rows of ‘B’ and so on.
The rows cycle through the values in turn, so scanning down the table we get ‘A’,’B’. . . ‘H’ repeated 125,000 times.

What will the bitmap indexes look like in the two cases?

For the first example, the basic map for the ‘A’ value will be 125,000 one-bits, followed by 875,000 zero bits – which will be trimmed off. Splitting the 125,000 bits into bytes and adding the necessary overhead of about 12% we get an entry for the ‘A’ rows of 18K. A similar argument applies for each of the values ‘B’ to ‘H’, so we get a total index size of around 8 x 18K – giving 156K.

For the second example, the basic map for the ‘A’ value will be a one followed by 7 zeros, repeated 125,000 times. There is no chance of compression here, so the ‘A’ entry will start at 125,000 bytes. Adding the overhead this goes up to 140K, and repeating the argument for the values ‘B’ to ‘H’ we get a total index of 1.12 MB.

This wild variation in size looks like a threat, but to put this into perspective, a standard B-tree index on this column would run to about 12 Mb irrespective of the pattern of the data. It would probably take about ten times as long to build as well.

I wrote up a test case to recreate this model some time ago, so here it is with the results from an instance of 11.1.0.7:

create table t1
as
with generator as (
	select	--+ materialize
		rownum id 
	from dual 
	connect by 
		level <= 10000
)
select
	chr(65 + mod(rownum-1,8))		bit_scattered,
	chr(65+trunc((rownum-1)/125000))	bit_clustered
from
	generator	v1,
	generator	v2
where
	rownum <= 1e6
;

create bitmap index t1_b1_scattered on t1(bit_scattered);
create bitmap index t1_b1_clustered on t1(bit_clustered);

select
	index_name, leaf_blocks, 8 * leaf_blocks KB
from
	user_indexes
where
	table_name = 'T1'
;

set doc off
doc

Results from 11.1.0.7
---------------------

INDEX_NAME           LEAF_BLOCKS         KB
-------------------- ----------- ----------
T1_B1_SCATTERED              164       1312
T1_B1_CLUSTERED               24        192

2 rows selected.
#

So, no big change there, then.
If you modify the code to create B-tree indexes you’ll find they are 14MB each if you don’t use compression, 12MB if you do.

Setting Up Embedded WLS for MySQL

Duncan Mills — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:53:47 PDT

For a while, on and off, I've been playing with MySQL in various applications, to the extent that it made sense to work out how to specifically configure the domain so that the MySQL driver would always be available. The advice in the great googleblogosphere seems to be to drop the jar file in the DefaultDomain/lib directory and all will be well. But although you can then see the jar being loaded as WLS starts up, it certainly wasn't working for some of my pre-loading services within the container which could still not find the driver. (Although I'm not saying that this technique would not be OK for an ADF application that you deploy that uses MySQL)

In the end I thought that the simplest thing was to work out what we do with the Oracle driver and emulate that. Sure enough it's there in the /DefaultDomain/bin/setDomainEnv script (.cmd or .sh). You'll find it in there in the PRE_CLASSPATH section. So my solution was to simply add the driver reference there (code below reformatted for clarity):

if NOT "%PRE_CLASSPATH%"=="" (
  set PRE_CLASSPATH=%COMMON_COMPONENTS_HOME%\modules\oracle.jdbc_11.1.1\ojdbc6dms.jar;
                    d:\shared\mysql\mysql-connector-java-5.1.18-bin.jar;%PRE_CLASSPATH%
) else (
  set PRE_CLASSPATH=%COMMON_COMPONENTS_HOME%\modules\oracle.jdbc_11.1.1\ojdbc6dms.jar;
                    d:\shared\mysql\mysql-connector-java-5.1.18-bin.jar
)

And that's certainly done the trick for me. So I think I can guarantee that at least one of the two methods here will work for you... At some point I'll put together a proper MySQL Extension for JDev that creates a library, sets this up, and registers a custom type-map for ADFBC, but alas time is always at a premium...

Calling Java procedure from database

noreply@blogger.com (Ilmar Kerm) — Thu, 17 May 2012 01:07:00 PDT

Oracle Database has had the possibility to run Java code inside the database for a long time. It's a very rare occasion when you need to use it but still. Here is one example I used to download content from HTTPS website that required user certificates for authentication. Please take the code below more as an example how to put simple Java code inside the database, not as a solution for user certificates authentication, because UTL_HTTP can do the same thing (although I wasn't successful in implementing it under 11.2.0.2).

First, load the Java source into database. The code below shows:

How to return simple datatype (int) from Java function - makeConnection
How to return Oracle CLOB datatype from Java - makeConnectionClob
How to execute SQL from Java, in the same calling session

Note that method main is just added for testing from command line.

CREATE OR REPLACE AND RESOLVE JAVA SOURCE NAMED "HttpsHandler" as
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.URL;

import javax.net.ssl.HostnameVerifier;
import javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLContext;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLSession;

import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.PreparedStatement;
import oracle.jdbc.driver.*;
import oracle.sql.CLOB;

public class HttpsHandler {
  
  
  public static CLOB makeConnectionClob(String keyStorePath, String keyStorePass, String trustStorePath, String httpsUrl, String proxyHost, String proxyPort) throws Exception {
    int i = makeConnection(keyStorePath, keyStorePass, trustStorePath, httpsUrl, proxyHost, proxyPort);
    String s = Integer.toString(s);
    OracleDriver driver = new OracleDriver();
    Connection dbconn = driver.defaultConnection();
    CLOB clob = CLOB.createTemporary(dbconn, false, CLOB.DURATION_CALL);
    clob.setString(1, s);
    return clob;
  }
  
  public static int makeConnection(String keyStorePath, String keyStorePass, String trustStorePath, String httpsUrl, String proxyHost, String proxyPort) throws Exception {
      //
      System.setProperty("javax.net.ssl.keyStore", keyStorePath);
      System.setProperty("javax.net.ssl.trustStore", trustStorePath);
      //System.setProperty("javax.net.debug", "ssl");
      System.setProperty("javax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword", keyStorePass);
      
      if (proxyHost != null && proxyPort != null) {
        System.setProperty("https.proxyHost", proxyHost);
        System.setProperty("https.proxyPort", proxyPort);
      }
      
      //
      SSLSocketFactory sslsocketfactory = (SSLSocketFactory) SSLSocketFactory.getDefault();
      URL url = new URL(httpsUrl);
      HttpsURLConnection conn = (HttpsURLConnection)url.openConnection();
      conn.setConnectTimeout(8000);
      conn.setSSLSocketFactory(sslsocketfactory);
      // Do not verify that hostname matches the certificate
/*      conn.setHostnameVerifier(new HostnameVerifier() {        
          public boolean verify(String hostname, SSLSession session)  {  
        return true;
          }
      });*/
      // Set request header
      conn.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
      InputStream inputstream = conn.getInputStream();
      InputStreamReader inputstreamreader = new InputStreamReader(inputstream);
      BufferedReader bufferedreader = new BufferedReader(inputstreamreader);
      
      OracleDriver driver = new OracleDriver();
      Connection dbconn = driver.defaultConnection();
      PreparedStatement dml_stmt = dbconn.prepareStatement("INSERT INTO https_output (num, line) VALUES (?,?)"); 
      
      String s = "";
      int linecount=0;
      while ((s = bufferedreader.readLine()) != null) {
        linecount++;
        dml_stmt.setInt(1, linecount);
        dml_stmt.setString(2, s);
        dml_stmt.executeUpdate();
      }
      dml_stmt.close();
      
      return linecount;
  }
  
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    try {
      int i = makeConnection("/path/to/keystore.jks", "keystore_pass", "/path/to/truststore.jks", "https://site.that.requires.user.cert/authentication/", null, null);
      System.out.println(Integer.toString(i));
    } catch (Exception e) {
      // TODO Auto-generated catch block
      e.printStackTrace();
    }
  }

};

Then you need to create a wrapper package in database. This declares the PL/SQL wrapper function names and input/output parameters.

CREATE OR REPLACE package https_user_cert_wrapper as

  FUNCTION make_request(keyStorePath IN varchar2, keyStorePass IN varchar2, trustStorePath IN varchar2, httpsUrl IN varchar2, proxyHost IN varchar2, proxyPort IN varchar2)
  RETURN number AS LANGUAGE JAVA 
  NAME 'HttpsHandler.makeConnection(java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.lang.String) return java.lang.int';

  FUNCTION make_request_clob(keyStorePath IN varchar2, keyStorePass IN varchar2, trustStorePath IN varchar2, httpsUrl IN varchar2, proxyHost IN varchar2, proxyPort IN varchar2)
  RETURN clob AS LANGUAGE JAVA 
  NAME 'HttpsHandler.makeConnectionClob(java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.lang.String) return oracle.sql.CLOB';

end;
/

Download the source: java_source.java and PL/SQL wrapper.sql.

When you first execute the code, you will most likely get some privilege errors, but the error message will tell you how to grant the needed privileges. For example, for this code the following grants were needed:

exec dbms_java.grant_permission( 'OWNER', 'SYS:java.util.PropertyPermission', 'javax.net.ssl.keyStore', 'write' );
exec dbms_java.grant_permission( 'OWNER', 'SYS:java.util.PropertyPermission', 'javax.net.ssl.trustStore', 'write' );
exec dbms_java.grant_permission( 'OWNER', 'SYS:java.util.PropertyPermission', 'javax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword', 'write' );
exec dbms_java.grant_permission( 'OWNER', 'SYS:java.net.SocketPermission', 'site.that.requires.user.cert', 'resolve' );
exec dbms_java.grant_permission( 'OWNER', 'SYS:java.net.SocketPermission', '1.2.3.4:443', 'connect,resolve' );

Oracle BI Mobileご紹介

YUSUKE NAKAMURA — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:00:32 PDT

Oracle BIは、Apple社のiPhoneやiPadなどのサポート対象モバイル機器上で、

Oracle BI EEコンテンツを利用することができます。

実装済みのBIコンテンツをモバイル機器で、すぐに利用可能することができ、
Mobile用の開発は不要です。
また、iPad特有の操作に対応（ピンチ・フリップなど）しており
直感的に操作していただくことができます。

Oracle BI Mobileの操作感は下記のリンクから
動画で見ていただくことができます。
是非、御覧ください。

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdbazqdXBeE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEBLFgwEr9s&feature=relmfu