script in CMD to copy only files that don't already exist

The following script will be written to copy.bat or something like that. When it runs it will copy the files that don't exist yet and skip them if the file does exist. This way it won't accidentally overwrite the file after you make changes to it.
set file=copy_mike.pdf
call:copy
set file=copy_jim.pdf
call:copy
set file=copy_bob.pdf
call:copy

echo done
pause
goto :EOF

:copy
if not exist %file% (
call:process
)
goto :EOF

:process
copy blank.pdf %file%


Facebook BigPipe is great!

BigPipe has been around for a while in Facebook. I love how the pagelets load all at once so that the first one to get loaded comes first. Also the idea of prolonging the javascript until all page content is loaded it a great idea.
Here is the page about BigPipe:
http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/bigpipe-pipelining-web-pages-for-high-performance/389414033919
I love this idea and may implement it on a site next time I am building a multimedia site. The nice thing is the main parts of the site are loaded very fast and then the rest are loaded with AJAX.

Javascript is Crazy

I have found out that javascript has some things that you have to be aware of or errors can creep into your code and you wouldn't know why.

I found this page that shows some weirdness of Javascript.
http://www.ozzu.com/programming-forum/javascript-get-array-key-name-t43467.html

There is no real associative array in Javascript. In most languages such as PHP you can do this.
$person = array();
$person['eyes'] = 'blue';
$person['hair'] = 'brown';
$person[1] = 'a number';
echo count($person); //returns 2

$person['length'] = '1 foot';
echo count($person); //returns 3

In Javascript here is what I found out.
You can try the same thing but it won't work right.
One reason is you have to get to Javascript associative arrays by its properties. Normally if you use numbers instead of words in the array keys you can go through the array with a for loop using:
for(x=0;x < person.length;x++){alert(x);}
When you use that with associative arrays it will show a length of 0 in the array. But you can loop through the array using for(x in person){alert(x);}

Here is the example for Javascript:
person = new Array();
person[0] = 'a number';
person['eyes'] = 'blue';
person['hair'] = 'brown';

alert(person.length); //returns 1 It only sees the associative array
alert(person.toString());

person['length'] = 99;
alert(person.length); //returns 99 this is the weird part
alert(person.hair); // returns brown

And if you use a string like 'one foot' for the length is will create an error since it is only expecting a number here. The length property is set by using x = new Array(99); and this is for making the array resized so if you made 3 items in the array then set the array to a size of 2 with:
x['length'] = 2;
You will notice that you won't be able to get at the 3rd array since the length has been truncated.

To go through the array above in Javascript you need to use the
for(x in person){
alert(x);
}
This is the way to get at the associative properties of the array.

Getting MySQL data into XML easily

I have been experimenting with XML lately and have found a great article for using XSLT to make an html table using an sql query from a database.
http://blog.mclaughlinsoftware.com/2008/08/29/querying-oracle-directly-from-xml/
It will use some of the instructions from this blog post:

http://blog.mclaughlinsoftware.com/2008/08/29/querying-oracle-directly-from-xml/

You will need a couple things to make this work.

download Xalan and unzip it to C:/xalan-j_2_7_1

http://xml.apache.org/xalan-j/downloads.html

Then download the mysql J connector:

http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/

Go into the zip and take it out and put it in the xalan folder

Mine was put here:

C:/xalan-j_2_7_1/mysql-connector-java-5.1.13-bin.jar

Next make an xsl file and name it mysql.xsl and put this in it:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:sql="org.apache.xalan.lib.sql.XConnection"
extension-element-prefixes="sql">
<xsl:output method="html" />
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:variable
name="movies"
select="sql:new('com.mysql.jdbc.Driver','jdbc:mysql:///storedb','student','student')" />
<xsl:variable name="streaming" select="sql:disableStreamingMode($movies)" />
<xsl:variable
name="queryResults"
select="sql:query($movies,'SELECT i.item_title, i.item_asin, i.item_release_date FROM storedb.item i')" />
<html>
<head><title>MySQL Result Set</title></head>
<body style="font-family: sans-serif;">
<table border="1" cellpadding="5">
<tr>
<xsl:for-each select="$queryResults/sql/metadata/column-header">
<th><xsl:value-of select="@column-label" /></th>
</xsl:for-each>
</tr>
<xsl:apply-templates select="$queryResults/sql/row-set/row" />
</table>
</body>
</html>
<xsl:value-of select="sql:close($movies)" />
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="row">
<tr><xsl:apply-templates select="col" /></tr>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="col">
<td><xsl:value-of select="text()" /></td>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Next run these commands from command prompt:

set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;C:\xalan-j_2_7_1\xalan.jar;.

set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;C:\xalan-j_2_7_1\serializer.jar

set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;C:\xalan-j_2_7_1\xercesImpl.jar

set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;C:\xalan-j_2_7_1\xml-apis.jar

set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;C:\xalan-j_2_7_1\xsltc.jar

set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;C:\xalan-j_2_7_1\mysql-connector-java-5.1.13-bin.jar

java org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -XSL mysql.xsl > mysql.html

Now you should have an html document called mysql.html all ready to look at in a browser with the database tables showing in html format.

I will show an example:

item_title	item_asin	item_release_date
"Good Eats with Alton Brown, Vol. 6 (3 - Pack): Tossed Around, Veggie Eats, Breakfast Eats 2"	143499
"Good Eats with Alton Brown Vol. 8, Delicious Dishes (3 - Pack): Condiment Nation, Ocean Edibles 2, Veggie Eats 2"	143510
Sports Medicine Imaging DVD: Single User	477044
Musculoskeletal MRI DVD: Single User	477087

Converting html codes to html entities

I found this helpful site to convert the html entities like < into &lt;
http://centricle.com/tools/html-entities/

And then url encode / decoding is good too:
http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/dencoder/

XSLT and iTunes parsing into HTML table

I will now show some code that I have been tweaking from a site:

http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/itunes-albumlist.html

It wasn't working so I had to play with it some until I understood how it works. XSLT is powerful when it comes to converting xml to any format you want.

I will show the example xslt style document I changed from the site above to make really cool looking iTunes tables showing all your music sorted by genre and the times and sizes of each.

First download the Xalan

Find your itunes xml document in My Music folder in My Documents for your current user then open the iTunes folder and copy the iTunes Music Library.xml to your xalan folder and rename it to itunes.xml

Here is where mines was found:

C:\Documents and Settings\mike\My Documents\My Music\iTunes

Now make an itunes.xsl file and put this in it:

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">

<xsl:key name="songsByAlbum" match="dict"
use="string[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Album']"/>

<xsl:key name="songsByGenre" match="dict"
use="string[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Genre']"/>


<xsl:template match="/plist/dict/dict">
<html>
<style>
table,th,td{border:1px solid black;padding:3px;}
th{text-align:left;background-color:#3333CC;}
.indent{border:0px;width:10px;}
.genre{background-color:#7094FF;}
.album{background-color:#3366FF;color: #222}
</style>
<body>
<table>
<tr><th colspan="2">Genre / Album</th><th>Artist</th><th>Time</th><th>Size</th></tr>
<xsl:for-each select="dict[generate-id(.)=
generate-id(key('songsByGenre',string)[1])]">
<xsl:sort select="string[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Genre']"/>
<xsl:for-each select="key('songsByGenre',string)[1]">

<xsl:call-template name="albumsInGenre">
<xsl:with-param name="genre"
select="string[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Genre']"/>
</xsl:call-template>



</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:for-each>

</table>
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>


<xsl:template name="albumsInGenre">
<xsl:param name="genre"/>

<tr><td class="genre" colspan='5'><b><xsl:value-of select="$genre"/></b></td></tr>

<xsl:variable name="song" select="/plist/dict/dict/dict"/>
<xsl:for-each select="$song[generate-id(.)=
generate-id(key('songsByAlbum',string[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Album'])[1])]">
<xsl:sort select="string[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Album']"/>
<xsl:for-each select="key('songsByAlbum',string[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Album'])
[string[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Genre']=$genre][1]">
<tr>
<td class="indent"> </td>
<td class="album" align='left'><xsl:call-template name="albumName"/></td>
<td class="album" align='left'><xsl:call-template name="artistName"/></td>
<td class="album" align='right'><xsl:call-template name="iTunesTimeAlbum"/></td>
<td class="album" align='right'><xsl:call-template name="iTunesSizeTotal"/></td>
</tr>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="albumName">
<xsl:value-of select="string[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Album']"/>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="artistName">
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="true[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Compilation']">
<i>Compilation</i>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<xsl:value-of select="string[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Artist']"/>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="iTunesTimeAlbum">
<xsl:variable name="tracksInAlbum"
select="key('songsByAlbum',string[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Album'])"/>
<xsl:variable name="t"
select="sum($tracksInAlbum/integer[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Total Time'])"/>
<xsl:call-template name="formatTime">
<xsl:with-param name="t" select="$t"/>
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="formatTime">
<xsl:param name="t"/>
<xsl:if test="$t != 0">
<xsl:variable name="h" select="floor(($t div (1000*60*60)))"/>
<xsl:variable name="m" select="floor(($t div (1000*60)) mod 60)"/>
<xsl:variable name="s" select="floor(($t div 1000) mod 60)"/>
<xsl:if test="$h != 0"><xsl:value-of select="$h"/>:</xsl:if>
<xsl:value-of select="format-number($m,'00')"/>:<xsl:value-of select="format-number($s,'00')"/>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="iTunesSizeTotal">
<xsl:variable name="tracksInAlbum"
select="key('songsByAlbum',string[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Album'])"/>
<xsl:variable name="s"
select="sum($tracksInAlbum/integer[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Size'])"/>
<xsl:value-of select="format-number($s div (1000*1000),'00.00')"/>MB
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="formatSize">
<xsl:param name="s"/>
<xsl:if test="$s != 0">
<xsl:value-of select="floor($s)"/>GB
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="iTunesSizeTotalorig">
<xsl:variable name="s" select="sum(dict/integer[preceding-sibling::key[1]='Size'])"/>
<xsl:value-of select="floor($s div (1000*1000))"/>MB
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Now you just open command prompt and paste this into it:

set CLASSPATH=C:\JavaDev\Java5\ojdbc5.jar;.

set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;C:\xalan-j_2_7_1\xalan.jar;.

set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;C:\xalan-j_2_7_1\serializer.jar

set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;C:\xalan-j_2_7_1\xercesImpl.jar

set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;C:\xalan-j_2_7_1\xml-apis.jar

set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;C:\xalan-j_2_7_1\xsltc.jar

Next paste this line:

java org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -IN itunes.xml -XSL itunes.xsl -HTML > itunes.html

Now after pressing enter you should have an html file in the xalan folder and it will be formated like this:

Genre / Album		Artist	Time	Size
General Classical
	Bibbidi Bobbidi Bach	Scott Tennant	07:31	07.22MB
Soundtrack
	Les Miserables 10th Anniversary Concert Disc 1	1995 Royal Albert Hall Concert Cast	03:15	03.12MB
	Les Miserables 10th Anniversary Concert Disc 2	1995 Royal Albert Hall Concert Cast	03:09	03.02MB

Isn't that cool? You could also use the path to the itunes xml file in the xalan if you like what you see and then it will just convert to html what ever you have now.

This works for me too if you are in the xalan folder or where ever you have your itunes.xsl file and where you want your itenues.html to be written or you may change those as well:

java org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -IN "C:\Documents and Settings\mike\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music Library.xml" -XSL itunes.xsl -HTML > itunes.html

learning XSLT and xml to csv to Oracle or MySQL

I have been learning some XSLT

Here is a good place to start learning how to use it to convert xml to html.

This is the page on W3 schools teaching about the for-each loop that lets you loop through the xml code then you can select the xml elements you want to grab.

http://www.w3schools.com/XSL/xsl_for_each.asp

You can also convert xml to csv and then to a database if you want. Here is a good tutorial on how to do this:

http://blog.mclaughlinsoftware.com/oracle-sql-programming/how-to-convert-xml-to-csv-and-upload-into-oracle/

Also if you want to take a csv file and put it into a MySQL database this is what you do:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS movie;

CREATE TABLE movie ( role VARCHAR(30) , actor VARCHAR(30) , movie VARCHAR(60)) engine=memory;

TRUNCATE movie;

LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE 'path_to_csv/movie.csv'

INTO TABLE movie

FIELDS TERMINATED BY '\t'

ESCAPED BY '\\'

LINES TERMINATED BY '\r\n'

IGNORE 1 LINES;

The csv is taken into the table with the load data local infile command.

Drop table will drop the table so you can create it again next time you use this command so it is a re-runnable script.

Truncate just removes all data in the table. The Oracle script on blog.mclaughlinsoftware.com uses an external table which makes it so when you read from the table movie you are really reading from the csv file so when ever you change the csv the data in the database is automatically changed when you read from it next. Like:

SELECT * FROM movie;