3.0 Modeler Sneak Peak - Transformations

The newly free modeler has some great new features coming as well.  This is an example of the new scriptable transformations.  This is a fairly simple example but I think it shows of how powerful this form of transforming the models can be.

First, we start by importing the HR schema to have something to work with.  

 To invoke a Transformation or create a new one, simply choose under Design Rules.

I'm going to use the first one in the list which changes all table names to lowercase.  The part of this I like is that it's using Java's scripting engine support which allows you to plugin any engine you like programming in.  The default is javascript which is what this example is.

The end result is as expected, the table names are lower case now.

3.0 Sneak Peek #2 - Schema Browser

I'm going to try and do some short blog entries that are showcasing some of the up and coming features of 3.0.  We showed lots of people at Open World but for those of you that couldn't be there, stay tuned and I'll put a few things out.


Another new thing being added is an alternative view of the objects in the schema. Simply right click on the connections and choose Schema Browser.

Then you are presented with a drop list of the schemas and object type.

Then as with the tree based navigator, there is filtering.  This view has 2 types of filtering.  The first is when you click the down arrow as shown in the screen shot.  This takes you to the normal filter dialog and filters by adding a predicate to the sql retrieving a list of objects.  The second is the binoculars at the bottom of the list.  This does a very fast/simple client filter of the objects listed. As seen below with "jo" in the search.

REST/JSON access to your data in 2 clicks

There never seems to be enough time at oow to show all the new things coming.  Some new things in the listener is exactly the case this year.  A few people found me and asked some questions but we didn't have a good setup for demoing it there.  Here's one of the new things coming....


Here's how to get REST / JSON access to your data in 2 mouse clicks.

1. Click Add Resource Template

2. Fill in the fields. Second Click Save.
    
   You can tell that the {id} is the bind that is passed into the query.  Where it's referenced with the same syntax to use as a bind.

Done.  Now here's the JSON output from all that hard work :)

Obviously this is a very simple example and there are more samples and documentation on the possibilities coming.

Oracle Dev Days vm tip

We passed out a few thousand of these DVDs at OpenWorld this week.  I thought I'd pass on a little tip I use to easier connect from the host to the database inside the guest.


I setup my host's port 1521 to forward into the vm to simplify the connect.  Here's the command to issue on the host in my case my mac.

Kris-Rices-MacBook-Pro:~ klrice$ VBoxManage modifyvm "Oracle Developer Days"  --natpf1 "tns,tcp,127.0.0.1,1521,,1521"

Now anything going to 1521 on the host will be forwarded into the guest.  Here's sqlplus working on the host machine.

Kris-Rices-MacBook-Pro:~ klrice$ sqlplus system/oracle
SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.4.0 - Production on Fri Sep 24 11:29:03 2010
Copyright (c) 1982, 2007, Oracle.  All Rights Reserved.

Connected to:
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.1.0 - Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options

SQL> select 1 from dual;
  1
----------
  1

Getting Running with APEX Listener 1.0.1

There's a new feature in the latest listener posted a few minutes ago that makes it easier than ever to get up and running thanks to Sun.   There is now a built in webserver thanks to Glassfish.  That means for desktop or testing there's no need to download any webserver. However, the same war file is still deployable as before into your webserver of choice.



Here's the 5 steps to get a fully functional web server running against APEX.

1) Download Here : http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/apex-listener/downloads/index.html
2) unzip
3) type: java –jar apex.war
4) Then just follow command line prompts.
      - You'll be asked for the images location , admin and manager for the listener
5) When the browser pops open fill in the database connect information

Done.

Here's a couple of the command line options.

-Dapex.home=/path/to/apex : Path to the folder used to store the web container runtime,
                                             defaults to: ${user.home}/.apex/nnnn,  where nnnn is the HTTP listen port
-Dapex.port=nnnn : HTTP listen port,
                               defaults to 8080
-Dapex.images=/images/location : Path to the folder containing static images

In the doc see the "Using the Embedded Web Container" for more details


For the curious, what we did was embed Grizzly from the glassfish project , https://grizzly.dev.java.net .  This is a project designed for this use.  Embedding a webserver and servlet container for specialized purpose.


The other big addition is the java docs for the extension points.  More on that coming.....