Insert coordinates from text file into Smallworld database

I recently received a query from a reader asking if I could show him how to insert coordinates from a text file into Smallworld database.  I have put together a gist that shows how to do this.  I started off by using a LWT approach but then remembered that the recommended approach is to use the record transaction APIs.  So the gist includes both styles of database writing.

Using SQL from Magik against VMDS #swuc

At the Smallworld Users Conference yesterday, I heard someone ask when GE would provide an interface to write SQL from Magik against VMDS tables. It turns out that the functionality already exists. Here are some examples.

1. You can get a SQL prompt directly at the Magik prompt...

MagikSF> sql(gis_program_manager.cached_dataset(:gis))
$
SQL> SELECT name, address1 FROM hotel ORDER BY address1
$
Name                Address 1         

Acorn Guest House   154 Chesterton Road
Hamilton Lodge      156 Chesterton Road
De Freville House   166 Chesterton Road
Rosswill            17 Chesterton Road
Cam Guest House     17 Elizabeth Way  
Kirkwood House      172 Chesterton Road
All Seasons         219 Chesterton Road
Lyngamore           35 Chesterton Road
Suffolk House       69 Milton Road    
Southampton House   7 Elizabeth Way   
Ashley Hotel        74 Chesterton Road
Arundel House       Chesterton Road   
Gonville Hotel      Gonville Place    
Garden House        Granta Place      
University Arms     Regent Street     

15 record(s) selected
SQL> SQL> select count(*) from min_road
$
COUNT(*)

833     

1 record(s) selected
SQL> SQL>

NOTE: the sql() procedure is defined in module :sql2. You can load that module if your image doesn't have the sql() procedure loaded.

2. You can also use the sql2_parser object directly in your Magik code.
You can find out more by searching the Smallworld documentation for "SQL Support". To be clear, this is not the same as Smallworld's SQL Server image code. This is strictly related to writing SQL in Magik to query Smallworld tables.

I have never used this in code, but I suppose it could come in handy if you were more comfortable writing a SQL statement compared to writing a selection predicate. I'm curious to hear if anyone else uses this SQL functionality within Smallworld.

discovering which SWAF config.xml file to change

Have you ever wondered exactly where in the XML config hierarchy a particular plugin is defined? With XML file inheritance in SWAF, it can sometimes get very complicated.

I have created some enhancements to the XML parsing and plugin creation methods that allow you to track the one or many XML FILENAMES where a plugin is defined.

Usage:

1. load this file
2. start the application whose configurations you want to trace.
3. get a handle on some plugin and then ask it for its debug!source_files. It will return a rope of XML file names that contain that plugin's definition in the order that they were encountered. I.E., the last XML file in the rope is the one that the plugin used for its definition.

For example:

MagikSF> smallworld_product.applications.an_element().plugin(:map_plugin).debug!source_files
$
sw:rope:[1-2]
MagikSF> print(!)
$
rope(1,2):
1     ".....\sw_user_custom\pni_gui\resources\base\data\config.xml"
2     ".....\sw_user_custom\custom_application\resources\base\data\config.xml"

so, this tells you that the "custom_application" config.xml file overrides the same plugin settings in PNI_GUI config.xml. If you want to make a change to the :map_plugin you will need to make it in CUSTOM_APPLICATION for the changes to take hold.

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT PUT THIS IN YOUR PRODUCTION CODE. This script is intended only for debugging your XML configuration files and should not be in any image that is writing data to a production database.

MUnit Testing Framework

I recently received a request from a reader wondering where the unit test application was on my blog. I don't have a post on that yet so I thought that now was as good a time as any to make one.

I'm not going to go into the details here. Suffice it to say, that the MUnit framework is based on the original JUnit framework but for Magik instead of Java.

I have found it helpful when developing code to create some kind of automated test scripts. There is much that can be debated about how much or how little test scripting to do.

Mark Field had a detailed presentation at the Smallworld 2007 Americas Users Conference this year titled "Implementing MUnit for Smallworld". I imagine you could contact him for the presentation or maybe we can get him to post more information on his blog. If you have the username/password, you can download the presentation from https://www.kinsleyassociates.com/ge/smallworld/presentations.asp

[NOTE: The above links are old. You can find the presentation slides and download zip file at http://sw-gis.wikidot.com/magik-munit]

GE also had/has a version of MUnit but from what I understand they are reluctant to release it to the community. I found that there was a version of MUnit created by Jan Vorel at http://www.janvorel.com. Unfortunately the current version of that site is not very user friendly like it used to be and you can no longer download Jan's code from there. But if you look at http://web.archive.org/web/20030406030601/www.janvorel.com/ you will find an archived version of the web site that still has a working link to his version of MUnit. It only works on CST 3.3 but I found that with a few modifications it works in CST 4.x as well.

The implementations of MUnit that I have seen do not allow you to test mouse/keyboard input. Mark's presentation describes how he enhanced MUnit to include those features.

One enhancement I did for the MUnit framework some time ago was to create a new test listener that exported the test results as XML and/or HTML. An example of those results is here.

You can click here for a Yahoo Groups search result on MUnit.

getting a list of all users currently connected to Smallworld

I learned a new aspect of Windows command-line scripting the other day that I thought might be worth sharing here.

The requirement was to get a list of all users connected to a particular swmfs server and notify them that the server was about to go down.

I discovered that the FOR command is just what the doctor ordered for this task. The basic form is as follows...

FOR /F "skip=5 delims=@" %%i IN ('swmfs_list -full \\%COMPUTERNAME%\sw400\product\data message.ds') DO net send %%i Smallworld server going down in 2 minutes.

Where...

• FOR /F ... IN ...
• Command key words that tell the system that you want to iteratively process the results of some file or command
• ('swmfs_list -full \\%COMPUTERNAME%\sw400\product\data message.ds')
• the command that will have each line processed individually for some information. This particular command provides a list of all the user@computername that are connected to message.ds in the specified folder on %COMPUTERNAME%
• %%i
• the internal variable representing each line of the file/command
• "skip=5 delims=@"
• instructions to the command to skip the first 5 lines of swmfs_list and then also split the processed lines by the @ character.
• DO
• a command key word that indicates that what follows next is the command to be processed on each line of iterator
• net send %%i Smallworld server going down in 2 minutes.
• the NET SEND command is used to send the message "Smallworld server going down in 2 minutes" to the user specified in variable %%i. Remember that the variable %%i represents the first element of each line after it has been split by the @ character.
  

Special note about the variables. If you are running this script from within a BAT file, you need to reference the variable with two percent signs: eg., %%i. If you want to test this functionality at the command line, you need to reference the variable with only one percent sign: eg., %i.

I hope you find this useful.

getting a list of all users currently connected to Smallworld

I learned a new aspect of Windows command-line scripting the other day that I thought might be worth sharing here.

The requirement was to get a list of all users connected to a particular swmfs server and notify them that the server was about to go down.

I discovered that the FOR command is just what the doctor ordered for this task. The basic form is as follows...

FOR /F "skip=5 delims=@" %%i IN ('swmfs_list -full \\%COMPUTERNAME%\sw400\product\data message.ds') DO net send %%i Smallworld server going down in 2 minutes.

Where...

• FOR /F ... IN ...
• Command key words that tell the system that you want to iteratively process the results of some file or command
  
• ('swmfs_list -full \\%COMPUTERNAME%\sw400\product\data message.ds')
• the command that will have each line processed individually for some information. This particular command provides a list of all the user@computername that are connected to message.ds in the specified folder on %COMPUTERNAME%
  
• %%i
• the internal variable representing each line of the file/command
  
• "skip=5 delims=@"
• instructions to the command to skip the first 5 lines of swmfs_list and then also split the processed lines by the @ character.
  
• DO
• a command key word that indicates that what follows next is the command to be processed on each line of iterator
  
• net send %%i Smallworld server going down in 2 minutes.
• the NET SEND command is used to send the message "Smallworld server going down in 2 minutes" to the user specified in variable %%i. Remember that the variable %%i represents the first element of each line after it has been split by the @ character.
  

I hope you find this useful.