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• Database Migration Scripts: Getting from place A to place B

  - by Phil Factor

  We’ll be looking at a typical database ‘migration’ script which uses an unusual technique to migrate existing ‘de-normalised’ data into a more correct form. So, the book-distribution business that uses the PUBS database has gradually grown organically, and has slipped into ‘de-normalisation’ habits. What’s this? A new column with a list of tags or ‘types’ assigned to books. Because books aren’t really in just one category, someone has ‘cured’ the mismatch between the database and the business requirements. This is fine, but it is now proving difficult for their new website that allows searches by tags. Any request for history book really has to look in the entire list of associated tags rather than the ‘Type’ field that only keeps the primary tag. We have other problems. The TypleList column has duplicates in there which will be affecting the reporting, and there is the danger of mis-spellings getting there. The reporting system can’t be persuaded to do reports based on the tags and the Database developers are complaining about the unCoddly things going on in their database. In your version of PUBS, this extra column doesn’t exist, so we’ve added it and put in 10,000 titles using SQL Data Generator. /* So how do we refactor this database? firstly, we create a table of all the tags. */IF  OBJECT_ID('TagName') IS NULL OR OBJECT_ID('TagTitle') IS NULL  BEGIN  CREATE TABLE  TagName (TagName_ID INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY ,     Tag VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL UNIQUE)  /* ...and we insert into it all the tags from the list (remembering to take out any leading spaces */  INSERT INTO TagName (Tag)     SELECT DISTINCT LTRIM(x.y.value('.', 'Varchar(80)')) AS [Tag]     FROM     (SELECT  Title_ID,          CONVERT(XML, '<list><i>' + REPLACE(TypeList, ',', '</i><i>') + '</i></list>')          AS XMLkeywords          FROM   dbo.titles)g    CROSS APPLY XMLkeywords.nodes('/list/i/text()') AS x ( y )  /* we can then use this table to provide a table that relates tags to articles */  CREATE TABLE TagTitle   (TagTitle_ID INT IDENTITY(1, 1),   [title_id] [dbo].[tid] NOT NULL REFERENCES titles (Title_ID),   TagName_ID INT NOT NULL REFERENCES TagName (Tagname_ID)   CONSTRAINT [PK_TagTitle]       PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([title_id] ASC, TagName_ID)       ON [PRIMARY])        CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX idxTagName_ID  ON  TagTitle (TagName_ID)  INCLUDE (TagTitle_ID,title_id)        /* ...and it is easy to fill this with the tags for each title ... */        INSERT INTO TagTitle (Title_ID, TagName_ID)    SELECT DISTINCT Title_ID, TagName_ID      FROM        (SELECT  Title_ID,          CONVERT(XML, '<list><i>' + REPLACE(TypeList, ',', '</i><i>') + '</i></list>')          AS XMLkeywords          FROM   dbo.titles)g    CROSS APPLY XMLkeywords.nodes('/list/i/text()') AS x ( y )    INNER JOIN TagName ON TagName.Tag=LTRIM(x.y.value('.', 'Varchar(80)'))    END    /* That's all there was to it. Now we can select all titles that have the military tag, just to try things out */SELECT Title FROM titles  INNER JOIN TagTitle ON titles.title_ID=TagTitle.Title_ID  INNER JOIN Tagname ON Tagname.TagName_ID=TagTitle.TagName_ID  WHERE tagname.tag='Military'/* and see the top ten most popular tags for titles */SELECT Tag, COUNT(*) FROM titles  INNER JOIN TagTitle ON titles.title_ID=TagTitle.Title_ID  INNER JOIN Tagname ON Tagname.TagName_ID=TagTitle.TagName_ID  GROUP BY Tag ORDER BY COUNT(*) DESC/* and if you still want your list of tags for each title, then here they are */SELECT title_ID, title, STUFF(  (SELECT ','+tagname.tag FROM titles thisTitle    INNER JOIN TagTitle ON titles.title_ID=TagTitle.Title_ID    INNER JOIN Tagname ON Tagname.TagName_ID=TagTitle.TagName_ID  WHERE ThisTitle.title_id=titles.title_ID  FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE).value('.', 'varchar(max)')  ,1,1,'')    FROM titles  ORDER BY title_ID So we’ve refactored our PUBS database without pain. We’ve even put in a check to prevent it being re-run once the new tables are created. Here is the diagram of the new tag relationship We’ve done both the DDL to create the tables and their associated components, and the DML to put the data in them. I could have also included the script to remove the de-normalised TypeList column, but I’d do a whole lot of tests first before doing that. Yes, I’ve left out the assertion tests too, which should check the edge cases and make sure the result is what you’d expect. One thing I can’t quite figure out is how to deal with an ordered list using this simple XML-based technique. We can ensure that, if we have to produce a list of tags, we can get the primary ‘type’ to be first in the list, but what if the entire order is significant? Thank goodness it isn’t in this case. If it were, we might have to revisit a string-splitter function that returns the ordinal position of each component in the sequence. You’ll see immediately that we can create a synchronisation script for deployment from a comparison tool such as SQL Compare, to change the schema (DDL). On the other hand, no tool could do the DML to stuff the data into the new table, since there is no way that any tool will be able to work out where the data should go. We used some pretty hairy code to deal with a slightly untypical problem. We would have to do this migration by hand, and it has to go into source control as a batch. If most of your database changes are to be deployed by an automated process, then there must be a way of over-riding this part of the data synchronisation process to do this part of the process taking the part of the script that fills the tables, Checking that the tables have not already been filled, and executing it as part of the transaction. Of course, you might prefer the approach I’ve taken with the script of creating the tables in the same batch as the data conversion process, and then using the presence of the tables to prevent the script from being re-run. The problem with scripting a refactoring change to a database is that it has to work both ways. If we install the new system and then have to rollback the changes, several books may have been added, or had their tags changed, in the meantime. Yes, you have to script any rollback! These have to be mercilessly tested, and put in source control just in case of the rollback of a deployment after it has been in place for any length of time. I’ve shown you how to do this with the part of the script .. /* and if you still want your list of tags for each title, then here they are */SELECT title_ID, title, STUFF(  (SELECT ','+tagname.tag FROM titles thisTitle    INNER JOIN TagTitle ON titles.title_ID=TagTitle.Title_ID    INNER JOIN Tagname ON Tagname.TagName_ID=TagTitle.TagName_ID  WHERE ThisTitle.title_id=titles.title_ID  FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE).value('.', 'varchar(max)')  ,1,1,'')    FROM titles  ORDER BY title_ID …which would be turned into an UPDATE … FROM script. UPDATE titles SET  typelist= ThisTaglistFROM     (SELECT title_ID, title, STUFF(    (SELECT ','+tagname.tag FROM titles thisTitle      INNER JOIN TagTitle ON titles.title_ID=TagTitle.Title_ID      INNER JOIN Tagname ON Tagname.TagName_ID=TagTitle.TagName_ID    WHERE ThisTitle.title_id=titles.title_ID    ORDER BY CASE WHEN tagname.tag=titles.[type] THEN 1 ELSE 0  END DESC    FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE).value('.', 'varchar(max)')    ,1,1,'')  AS ThisTagList  FROM titles)fINNER JOIN Titles ON f.title_ID=Titles.title_ID You’ll notice that it isn’t quite a round trip because the tags are in a different order, though we’ve managed to make sure that the primary tag is the first one as originally. So, we’ve improved the database for the poor book distributors using PUBS. It is not a major deal but you’ve got to be prepared to provide a migration script that will go both forwards and backwards. Ideally, database refactoring scripts should be able to go from any version to any other. Schema synchronization scripts can do this pretty easily, but no data synchronisation scripts can deal with serious refactoring jobs without the developers being able to specify how to deal with cases like this.

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• Google app engine and paging

  - by klausbyskov

  How would one go about writing a query that selects items 2000-2010 out of a collection of 10000 objects in the data store. I know that it can be done like this in GQL: select * from MyObject limit 10 offset 2000 According to the documentation, when using an offset the engine will still fetch all the rows, only not return them, thus making the query perform in a way that corresponds linearly with the value of offset. Is there any better way? Such as using a pseudo ROWNUM column like one could do in other types of data stores.

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• PHP MVC Framework Structure

  - by bigstylee

  I am sorry about the amount of code here. I have tried to show enough for understanding while avoiding confusion (I hope). I have included a second copy of the code at Pastebin. (The code does execute without error/notice/warning.) I am currently creating a Content Management System while trying to implement the idea of Model View Controller. I have only recently come across the concept of MVC (within the last week) and trying to implement this into my current project. One of the features of the CMS is dynamic/customisable menu areas and each feature will be represented by a controller. Therefore there will be multiple versions of the Controller Class, each with specific extended functionality. I have looked at a number of tutorials and read some open source solutions to the MVC Framework. I am now trying to create a lightweight solution for my specific requirements. I am not interested in backwards compatibility, I am using PHP 5.3. An advantage of the Base class is not having to use global and can directly access any loaded class using $this->Obj['ClassName']->property/function();. Hoping to get some feedback using the basic structure outlined (with performance in mind). Specifically; a) Have I understood/implemented the concept of MVC correctly? b) Have I understood/implemented Object Orientated techniques with PHP 5 correctly? c) Should the class propertise of Base be static? d) Improvements? Thank you very much in advance! <?php /* A "Super Class" that creates/stores all object instances */ class Base { public static $Obj = array(); // Not sure this is the correct use of the "static" keyword? public static $var; static public function load_class($directory, $class) { echo count(self::$Obj)."\n"; // This does show the array is getting updated and not creating a new array :) if (!isset(self::$Obj[$class]) && !is_object(self::$Obj[$class])) //dont want to load it twice { /* Locate and include the class file based upon name ($class) */ return self::$Obj[$class] = new $class(); } return TRUE; } } /* Loads general configuration objects into the "Super Class" */ class Libraries extends Base { public function __construct(){ $this->load_class('library', 'Database'); $this->load_class('library', 'Session'); self::$var = 'Hello World!'; //testing visibility /* Other general funciton classes */ } } class Database extends Base { /* Connects to the the database and executes all queries */ public function query(){} } class Session extends Base { /* Implements Sessions in database (read/write) */ } /* General functionality of controllers */ abstract class Controller extends Base { protected function load_model($class, $method) { /* Locate and include the model file */ $this->load_class('model', $class); call_user_func(array(self::$Obj[$class], $method)); } protected function load_view($name) { /* Locate and include the view file */ #include('views/'.$name.'.php'); } } abstract class View extends Base { /* ... */ } abstract class Model extends Base { /* ... */ } class News extends Controller { public function index() { /* Displays the 5 most recent News articles and displays with Content Area */ $this->load_model('NewsModel', 'index'); $this->load_view('news', 'index'); echo $this->var; } public function menu() { /* Displays the News Title of the 5 most recent News articles and displays within the Menu Area */ $this->load_model('news/index'); $this->load_view('news/index'); } } class ChatBox extends Controller { /* ... */ } /* Lots of different features extending the controller/view/model class depending upon request and layout */ class NewsModel extends Model { public function index() { echo $this->var; self::$Obj['Database']->query(/*SELECT 5 most recent news articles*/); } public function menu() { /* ... */ } } $Libraries = new Libraries; $controller = 'News'; // Would be determined from Query String $method = 'index'; // Would be determined from Query String $Content = $Libraries->load_class('controller', $controller); //create the controller for the specific page if (in_array($method, get_class_methods($Content))) { call_user_func(array($Content, $method)); } else { die('Bad Request'. $method); } $Content::$var = 'Goodbye World'; echo $Libraries::$var . ' - ' . $Content::$var; ?> /* Ouput */ 0 1 2 3 Goodbye World! - Goodbye World

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• How can I do a right outer join where both tables have a where clause?

  - by cdeszaq

  Here's the scenario: I have 2 tables: CREATE TABLE dbo.API_User ( id int NOT NULL, name nvarchar(255) NOT NULL, authorization_key varchar(255) NOT NULL, is_active bit NOT NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] CREATE TABLE dbo.Single_Sign_On_User ( id int NOT NULL IDENTITY (1, 1), API_User_id int NOT NULL, external_id varchar(255) NOT NULL, user_id int NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] What I am trying to return is the following: is_active for a given authorization_key The Single_Sign_On_User.id that matches the external_id/API_User_id pair if it exists or NULL if there is no such pair When I try this query: SELECT Single_Sign_On_User.id, API_User.is_active FROM API_User LEFT OUTER JOIN Single_Sign_On_User ON Single_Sign_On_User.API_User_id = API_User.id WHERE Single_Sign_On_User.external_id = 'test_ext_id' AND API_User.authorization_key = 'test' where the "test" API_User record exists but the "test_ext_id" record does not, and with no other values in either table, I get no records returned. When I use: SELECT Single_Sign_On_User.id, API_User.is_active FROM API_User LEFT OUTER JOIN Single_Sign_On_User ON Single_Sign_On_User.API_User_id = API_User.id WHERE API_User.authorization_key = 'test' I get the results I expect (NULL, 1), but that query doesn't allow me to find the "test_ext_id" record if it exists but would give me all records associated with the "test" API_User record. How can I get the results I am after?

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• Login code sample which has been hacked via SQL Injection, although mysql_real_escape_string...

  - by artmania

  Hi friends, I use CodeIgniter, and having trouble with hacking :( is it possible to make SQL Injection to the login code below: function process_login() { $username = mysql_real_escape_string($this->input->post('username')); $password = mysql_real_escape_string(MD5($this->input->post('password'))); //Check user table $query = $this->db->getwhere('users', array('username'=>$username, 'password'=>$password)); if ($query->num_rows() > 0) { // success login data Am I using the mysql_real_escape_string wrong? or what? Appreciate helps!

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• Syntax error, unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING in PHP

  - by pmms

  mysql_connect("localhost","root",""); mysql_select_db("hitnrunf_db"); $result=mysql_query("select * from jos_users INTO OUTFILE 'users.csv' FIELDS ESCAPED BY '""' TERMINATED BY ',' ENCLOSED BY '"' LINES TERMINATED BY '\n' "); header("Content-type: text/plain"); header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=your_desired_name.xls"); header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary"); header("Pragma: no-cache"); header("Expires: 0"); print "$header\n$data"; in the above code in query string i.e string in side mysql_quey we are getting following error Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING in C:\wamp\www\samples\mysql_excel\exel_outfile.php on line 8 in query string '\n' charter is not identifying as string thats why above error getting

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• How do you pass or share variables between django views?

  - by Hugh

  Hi, I'm kind of lost as to how to do this: I have some chained select boxes, with one select box per view. Each choice should be saved so that a query is built up. At the end, the query should be run. But how do you share state in django? I can pass from view to template, but not template to view and not view to view. Or I'm truly not sure how to do this. Please help!

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• NHibernate Overcoming NotSupportedException

  - by Jordan Wallwork

  Does anyone know of any way to overcome NotSupportedException? I have a method against a User: public virtual bool IsAbove(User otherUser) { return HeirarchyString.StartsWith(otherUser.HeirarchyString); } And I want to do: _session.Query<User>.Where(x => loggedInUser.IsAbove(x)); But this throws a NotSupportedException. The real pain though is that using _session.Query<User>.Where(x => loggedInUser.HeirarchyString.StartsWith(x.HeirarchyString)); works absolutely fine. I don't like this as a solution, however, because it means that if I change how the IsAbove method works, I have to remember all the places where I have duplicated the code whenever I want to update it

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• Enumerable Contains Enumerable

  - by Tim

  For a method I have the following parameter IEnumerable<string> tags and with to query a list of objects, let's call them Post, that contains a property IEnumerable<string> Tags { get; set; }. My question is: How do I use linq to query for objects that contains all the tags from the tags parameter? private List<Post> posts = new List<Post>(); public IEnumerable<Post> GetPostsWithTags(IEnumerable<string> tags) { return ???; }

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• DataReader Behaviour With SQL Server Locking

  - by Graham

  We are having some issues with our data layer when large datasets are returned from a SQL server query via a DataReader. As we use the DataReader to populate business objects and serialize them back to the client, the fetch can take several minutes (we are showing progress to the user :-)), but we've found that there's some pretty hard-core locking going on on the affected tables which is causing other updates to be blocked. So I guess my slightly naive question is, at what point are the locks which are taken out as a result of executing the query actually relinquished? We seem to be finding that the locks are remaining until the last row of the DataReader has been processed and the DataReader is actually closed - does that seem correct? A quick 101 on how the DataReader works behind the scenes would be great as I've struggled to find any decent information on it. I should say that I realise the locking issues are the main concern but I'm just concerned with the behaviour of the DataReader here.

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• connection string reading data from excel in asp.net

  - by Greg

  Hello, I am trying to read data from excel file in asp.net. I have added the connection string to webConfig file: <add name="xls" connectionString="Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=HPM_DB.xls;Extended Properties=Excel 8.0"/> But it shows me an errormessage when I run this query: string query = "Select * from [IO_Definition$]"; IO_Definition is the name of the spreadsheet in my excel file. I also added the excel file to the App_Data folder of the website. The error is: The Microsoft Jet database engine could not find the object 'IO_Definition$'. Make sure the object exists and that you spell its name and the path name correctly. The thing is, when I write the absolute path of the excel file in the connectionString it does work. Is there anyway I can make it work without writing the absolute path? Thanks, Greg

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• Unable to execute fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC) and not updating csv file.

  - by Rachel

  // First, prepare the statement, using placeholders $query = "SELECT * FROM tableName"; $stmt = $this->connection->prepare($query); // Execute the statement $stmt->execute(); var_dump($stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)); while ($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) { echo "Hi"; // Export every row to a file fputcsv($data, $row); } Is this correct way to do and if yes than why do I get false value for var_dump and than it does not go into while loop and does not write into csv file. Any suggestions ?

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• Delphi, Csv,Import Firebird

  - by Vijesh V.Nair

  Lemme explain my problem. I have One ID and 2 Other Fields in a CsV file. the ID connected to a database table. I have to show the curresponding entries in the db and fields from Csv. Need sort the Fields too. My Idea was load into a ClientDataset, lookup to a Query with table and Use sort and show. My Csv have 85 K Records and its taking 120 seconds to load and sort, Its not acceptable. Can you tell me, can I use Bacthmove for this. So I can easily pick fields by a simple query. if I can use Bacthmove Plz give me the guild lines. Also Is there any other Techniques for this? Thanks and Regards, Vijesh V.Nair

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• How can I compare my PHPASS-hashed stored password to my incoming POST data?

  - by Ygam

  Here's a better example, just a simple checking..stored value in database has password: fafa (hashed with phpass in registration) and username: fafa; i am using the phpass password hashing framework public function demoHash($data) //$data is the post data named password { $hash =new PasswordHash(8, false); $query = ORM::factory('user'); $result = $query ->select('username, password') ->where('username', 'fafa') ->find(); $hashed = $hash->HashPassword($data); $check = $hash->CheckPassword($hashed, $result->password); echo $result->username . "<br/>"; echo $result->password . "<br/>"; return $check; } check is returning false

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• Multiple Table Join in Linq C# Dynamically

  - by kmkperumal

  I have 3 data table a,b,c In this I need to write Join Query Dynamically using linQ. The Selecting columns given by customer and Condition columns also given customer at run time. So i need to create Querys dynamically.Please check below example.Because i dont which table they want and which column also For example Select a.c1,a.c2,b.c1,b.c2 From a Left Join b on a.c1=b.c1 2.Select c.c1,c.c2,a.c1,a.c2 From c Left Join a on c.c3=a.c1 3.Select a.c1,a.c2,b.c1,b.c2,c.c1,c.c2 From a Left Join b on a.c2=b.c2 Left join c on c.c1=a.c1 Like i need create different set of query's. Please help me on this.

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• Complicated football league Dynamic Ordering in MySQL?

  - by Dan

  I have a table 'games' for a football league as follows: date home_team_id away_team_id home_score away_score - 1 2 6 21 - 3 1 7 19 I can't figure out how to dynamically generate a list of team ID's ordered by Wins (then points for if poss)? -- I have this query which works fine when I have a $team_id but of cause then I can only do 1 team at a time, and that doesn't allow for ordering at query level ((SELECT COUNT(*) FROM `games` WHERE ((`home_score` > `away_score`) AND `home_team_id` = '.$team_id.')) + (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM `games` WHERE ((`home_score` < `away_score`) AND `away_team_id` = '.$team_id.'))) AS `wins` I wonder if i can use this with some form of GROUP, or mySQL can know the $team_id itself? I've also tried some multiple JOINs with the 'team' table but they didn't work either. Thanks, Dan

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• How to figure the read/write ratio in Sql Server?

  - by Bill Paetzke

  How can I query the read/write ratio in Sql Server 2005? Are there any caveats I should be aware of? Perhaps it can be found in a DMV query, a standard report, a custom report (i.e the Performance Dashboard), or examining a Sql Profiler trace. I'm not sure exactly. Why do I care? I'm taking time to improve the performance of my web app's data layer. It deals with millions of records and thousands of users. One of the points I'm examining is database concurrency. Sql Server uses pessimistic concurrency by default--good for a write-heavy app. If my app is read-heavy, I might switch it to optimistic concurrency (isolation level: read uncommitted snapshot) like Jeff Atwood did with StackOverflow.

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• Constructing T-SQL WHERE condition at runtime

  - by Nickson

  I would like to implement a search function where a user passes all the arguments to the "WHERE" clause at runtime. For example in query below, SELECT Col1, Col2, Col3, Col4 FROM MyTable WHERE Col2 = John 1.Now what i want is to give the user a dropdownlist of columnns such that the user selects a column to search by at runtime Also instead of precoding Col2 = John, i want the user to choose their own operator at runtime(such as choosing between =, <, <, <, LIKE, IN) i basically want to contruct a query like SELECT Col1, Col2, Col3, Col4 FROM MyTable WHERE (@FieldToSearchBy e.g Col3, @OperatorToUserInSearach e.g LIKE, @ValueToSearch e.g John) I want to pass @FieldToSearchBy, @OperatorToUserInSearach, @ValueToSearch) as user specified parameters at runtime I want to do this with a TableAdpter like in this example http://www.codeproject.com/KB/database/TableAdapter.aspx

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• Problem in Fetching Table contents when adding rows in same table

  - by jasmine

  Im trying to write a function for adding category: function addCategory() { $cname = mysql_fix_string($_POST['cname']); $kabst = mysql_fix_string($_POST['kabst']); $kselect = $_POST['kselect']; $kradio = $_POST['kradio']; $ksubmit = $_POST['ksubmit']; $id = $_POST['id']; if($ksubmit){ $query = "INSERT INTO category VALUES (' ', '{$cname}', '{$kabst}', {$kselect}, {$kradio}, ' ') "; $result = mysql_query($query); if ($result) { echo "ok"; } else{ echo $query ; } } $text .= '<div class="form"> <h2>ADD new category</h2> <form action="?page=addCategory" method="post"> <ul> <li><label>Category</label></li> <li><input name="cname" type="text" class="inp" /></li> <li><label>Description</label></li> <li><textarea name="kabst" cols="40" rows="10" class="inx"></textarea></li> <li>Published:</li> <li> <select name="kselect" class="ins"> <option value="1">Active</option> <option value="0">Passive</option> </select> </li> <li>Show in home page:</li> <li> <input type="radio" name="kradio" value="1" /> yes <input type="radio" name="kradio" value="0" /> no </li> <li>Subcategory of</li> <li> <select>'; while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM category"))){ $text .= '<option>'.$row['name'].'</option>'; } $text .= '</select> </li> <li><input name="ksubmit" type="submit" value="ekle" class="int"/></li> </ul> </form> '; return $text;} And the error: Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded What is wrong in my function?

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• Are your personal insecurities screwing up your internal communications?

  - by Lucy Boyes

  I do some internal comms as part of my job. Quite a lot of it involves talking to people about stuff. I’m spending the next couple of weeks talking to lots of people about internal comms itself, because we haven’t done a lot of audience/user feedback gathering, and it turns out that if you talk to people about how they feel and what they think, you get some pretty interesting insights (and an idea of what to do next that isn’t just based on guesswork and generalising from self). Three things keep coming up from talking to people about what we suck at  in terms of internal comms. And, as far as I can tell, they’re all examples where personal insecurity on the part of the person doing the communicating makes the experience much worse for the people on the receiving end. 1. Spending time telling people how you’re going to do something, not what you’re doing and why Imagine you’ve got to give an update to a lot of people who don’t work in your area or department but do have an interest in what you’re doing (either because they want to know because they’re curious or because they need to know because it’s going to affect their work too). You don’t want to look bad at your job. You want to make them think you’ve got it covered – ideally because you do*. And you want to reassure them that there’s lots of exciting work going on in your area to make [insert thing of choice] happen to [insert thing of choice] so that [insert group of people] will be happy. That’s great! You’re doing a good job and you want to tell people about it. This is good comms stuff right here. However, you’re slightly afraid you might secretly be stupid or lazy or incompetent. And you’re exponentially more afraid that the people you’re talking to might think you’re stupid or lazy or incompetent. Or pointless. Or not-adding-value. Or whatever the thing that’s the worst possible thing to be in your company is. So you open by mentioning all the stuff you’re going to do, spending five minutes or so making sure that everyone knows that you’re DOING lots of STUFF. And the you talk for the rest of the time about HOW you’re going to do the stuff, because that way everyone will know that you’ve thought about this really hard and done tons of planning and had lots of great ideas about process and that you’ve got this one down. That’s the stuff you’ve got to say, right? To prove you’re not fundamentally worthless as a human being? Well, maybe. But probably not. See, the people who need to know how you’re going to do the stuff are the people doing the stuff. And those are the people in your area who you’ve (hopefully-please-for-the-love-of-everything-holy) already talked to in depth about how you’re going to do the thing (because else how could they help do it?). They are the only people who need to know the how**. It’s the difference between strategy and tactics. The people outside of your bubble of stuff-doing need to know the strategy – what it is that you’re doing, why, where you’re going with it, etc. The people on the ground with you need the strategy and the tactics, because else they won’t know how to do the stuff. But the outside people don’t really need the tactics at all. Don’t bother with the how unless your audience needs it. They probably don’t. It might make you feel better about yourself, but it’s much more likely that Bob and Jane are thinking about how long this meeting has gone on for already than how personally impressive and definitely-not-an-idiot you are for knowing how you’re going to do some work. Feeling marginally better about yourself (but, let’s face it, still insecure as heck) is not worth the cost, which in this case is the alienation of your audience. 2. Talking for too long about stuff This is kinda the same problem as the previous problem, only much less specific, and I’ve more or less covered why it’s bad already. Basic motivation: to make people think you’re not an idiot. What you do: talk for a very long time about what you’re doing so as to make it sound like you know what you’re doing and lots about it. What your audience wants: the shortest meaningful update. Some of this is a kill your darlings problem – the stuff you’re doing that seems really nifty to you seems really nifty to you, and thus you want to share it with everyone to show that you’re a smart person who thinks up nifty things to do. The downside to this is that it’s mostly only interesting to you – if other people don’t need to know, they likely also don’t care. Think about how you feel when someone is talking a lot to you about a lot of stuff that they’re doing which is at best tangentially interesting and/or relevant. You’re probably not thinking that they’re really smart and clearly know what they’re doing (unless they’re talking a lot and being really engaging about it, which is not the same as talking a lot). You’re probably thinking about something totally unrelated to the thing they’re talking about. Or the fact that you’re bored. You might even – and this is the opposite of what they’re hoping to achieve by talking a lot about stuff – be thinking they’re kind of an idiot. There’s another huge advantage to paring down what you’re trying to say to the barest possible points – it clarifies your thinking. The lightning talk format, as well as other formats which limit the time and/or number of slides you have to say a thing, are really good for doing this. It’s incredibly likely that your audience in this case (the people who need to know some things about your thing but not all the things about your thing) will get everything they need to know from five minutes of you talking about it, especially if trying to condense ALL THE THINGS into a five-minute talk has helped you get clear in your own mind what you’re doing, what you’re trying to say about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. The bonus of this is that by being clear in your thoughts and in what you say, and in not taking up lots of people’s time to tell them stuff they don’t really need to know, you actually come across as much, much smarter than the person who talks for half an hour or more about things that are semi-relevant at best. 3. Waiting until you’ve got every detail sorted before announcing a big change to the people affected by it This is the worst crime on the list. It’s also human nature. Announcing uncertainty – that something important is going to happen (big reorganisation, product getting canned, etc.) but you’re not quite sure what or when or how yet – is scary. There are risks to it. Uncertainty makes people anxious. It might even paralyse them. You can’t run a business while you’re figuring out what to do if you’ve paralysed everyone with fear over what the future might bring. And you’re scared that they might think you’re not the right person to be in charge of [thing] if you don’t even know what you’re doing with it. Best not to say anything until you know exactly what’s going to happen and you can reassure them all, right? Nope. The people who are going to be affected by whatever it is that you don’t quite know all the details of yet aren’t stupid***. You wouldn’t have hired them if they were. They know something’s up because you’ve got your guilty face on and you keep pulling people into meeting rooms and looking vaguely worried. Here’s the deal: it’s a lot less stressful for everyone (including you) if you’re up front from the beginning. We took this approach during a recent company-wide reorganisation and got really positive feedback. People would much, much rather be told that something is going to happen but you’re not entirely sure what it is yet than have you wait until it’s all fixed up and then fait accompli the heck out of them. They will tell you this themselves if you ask them. And here’s why: by waiting until you know exactly what’s going on to communicate, you remove any agency that the people that the thing is going to happen to might otherwise have had. I know you’re scared that they might get scared – and that’s natural and kind of admirable – but it’s also patronising and infantilising. Ask someone whether they’d rather work on a project which has an openly uncertain future from the beginning, or one where everything’s great until it gets shut down with no forewarning, and very few people are going to tell you they’d prefer the latter. Uncertainty is humanising. It’s you admitting that you don’t have all the answers, which is great, because no one does. It allows you to be consultative – you can actually ask other people what they think and how they feel and what they’d like to do and what they think you should do, and they’ll thank you for it and feel listened to and respected as people and colleagues. Which is a really good reason to start talking to them about what’s going on as soon as you know something’s going on yourself. All of the above assumes you actually care about talking to the people who work with you and for you, and that you’d like to do the right thing by them. If that’s not the case, you can cheerfully disregard the advice here, but if it is, you might want to think about the ways above – and the inevitable countless other ways – that making internal communication about you and not about your audience could actually be doing the people you’re trying to communicate with a huge disservice. So take a deep breath and talk. For five minutes or so. About the important things. Not the other things. As soon as you possibly can. And you’ll be fine.   *Of course you do. You’re good at your job. Don’t worry. **This might not always be true, but it is most of the time. Other people who need to know the how will either be people who you’ve already identified as needing-to-know and thus part of the same set as the people in you’re area you’ve already discussed this with, or else they’ll ask you. But don’t bring this stuff up unless someone asks for it, because most of the people in the audience really don’t care and you’re wasting their time. ***I mean, they might be. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re not.

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• How to create a custom ADO Multi Demensional Catalog with no database

  - by Alan Clark

  Does anyone know of an example of how to dynamically define and build ADO MD (ActiveX Data Objects Multidimensional) catalogs and cube definitions with a set of data other than a database? Background: we have a huge amount of data in our application that we export to a database and then query using the usual SQL joins, groups, sums etc to produce reports. The data in the application is originally in objects and arrays. The problem is the amount of data is so large the export can take 2 hours. So I am trying to figure out a good way of querying the objects in memory, either by a custom OLAP algorithm or library, or ADO MD. But I haven't been able to find an example of using ADO MD without a database behind it. We are using Delphi 2010 so would use ADO ActiveX but I imagine the ADO.NET MD is similar. I realize that if the application data was already stored in a database the problem would solve itself. Also if Delphi had LINQ capability I could query the objects and arrays that way.

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• Expression Tree : C#

  - by nettguy

  My understanding of expression tree is : Expression trees are in-memory representation of expression like arithmetic or boolean expression.The expressions are stored into the parsed tree.so we can easily transalate into any other language. Linq to SQL uses expression tree.Normally when our LINQ to SQL query compiler translates it to parsed expression trees.These are passed to Sql Server as T-SQL Statements.The Sql server executes the T-SQL query and sends down the result back.That is why when you execute LINQ to SQL you gets IQueryable<T> not IEnumetrable<T>.Because IQuerybale contains public IQueryable:IEnumerable { Type Element {get;} Expression Expression {get;} IQueryaleProvider Provider {get;} } Questions : Microsoft uses Expression trees to play with LINQ-to-Sql.What are the different ways can i use expression trees to boost my code. Apart from LINQ to SQL,Linq to amazon ,who used expression trees in their applications? Linq to Object return IEnumerable,Linq to SQL return IQueryable ,What does LINQ to XML return?

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• Increasing speed of webservice - howto

  - by Koran

  Hi, Our client-server product has the protocol between them as XML over HTTP. Here, the client asks a GET/POST query to the web server and the server responds with XML. The server is written using django. The server has to be on the web because there are many clients across the world using this. The server code uses extensive memoization and also there is very less db queries - most queries dont have any db queries, some of them has max 1. The biggest problem is the speed. Every query takes close to 5 seconds for the reply. The data replied is also very less - in the range of 4-6 Kb. What are the mechanisms to improve speed of the web service? Is this the usual way of writing a client-server? Are there other technologies and are we missing out on it? Thank you K

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• SQl rows to columns conversion

  - by Thihara

  Hi, I have a table ClassAttendance and I'm using MSSQL 2005 studentID--attendanceDate---------------------------------------status 1004--------2010-03-17--------------------------------------------------0 1005--------2010-03-17--------------------------------------------------1 1006--------2010-03-17--------------------------------------------------0 1007--------2010-03-17--------------------------------------------------0 1004--------2010-03-19--------------------------------------------------0 1005--------2010-03-19--------------------------------------------------1 1006--------2010-03-19--------------------------------------------------0 1007--------2010-03-19--------------------------------------------------0 1004--------2010-03-20--------------------------------------------------1 as you can see studentID is a foreign Key for a table called StudentData and attendedDate has an unknown number of rows. Can i get the output like below by using a query? I need the dates in one month to be columns and the value of the date columns will be values in the status column. The number of date records per studentID is the same its the number of dates in the attendanceDate filed that is unknown. studentID---------2010-03-17--------2010-03-19------2010-03-20 1004-----------------------------0----------------------0--------------------1 etc. This is for a creating a report so I need to do it in a query. Please help if you can.

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• Random Number on SQL without using NewID()

  - by Angel Escobedo

  Hello I want to generate a Unique Random number with out using the follow statement : Convert(int, (CHECKSUM(NEWID()))*100000) AS [ITEM] Cause when I use joins clauses on "from" it generates double registers by using NEWID() Im using SQL Server 2000 *PD : When I use Rand() it probably repeat on probability 1 of 100000000 but this is so criticall so it have to be 0% of probability to repeat a random value generated My Query with NewID() and result on SELECT statement is duplicated (x2) My QUery without NewID() and using Rand() on SELECT statement is single (x1) but the probability of repeat the random value generated is uncertainly but exists! Thanks!

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