Fabflix: Project 1

Our MIS division has identified the applications needed to develop, test and deploy the Fabflix web-based application so that it is consistent with our Linux production environment. Fortunately, all are freely available and have proven their stability and robustness.

Since our development PCs run Windows, we need to install an environment to simulate a Linux interface. Cygwin has been chosen for this purpose, as it can support the other applications needed for this project.

MySQL has been chosen as the database. There are both Windows and Linux versions of MySQL; we use the latter running under cygwin so that we are sure it will work in our production environment.

To develop Web software, we need the Java development environment; the most current version, 6.0, is required. In addition to the Java language itself, we need the JDBC libraries so that the developed Java code can interface with MySQL.

Management has okayed using Windows for developing any aspect of Fabflix that can be ported to Linux without change; for example, text editing and Java programming development can be done in Windows, as .txt, .java and .class files are portable between the two environments. However, for system dependent aspects of Fablix, development must be done under cygwin to ensure compatibility with our production system. We recommend using the Windows environment as much as feasible, as it has a richer tool set than cygwin; that will perhaps speed up development. In particular, we recommend that you use a free  Integrated Development Environment such as Eclipse or Netbeans.

If you have a non-Windows machine (e.g., a Mac or a computer running Linux or some flavor of Unix) you want to use for development, that's fine–but your installation procedures will be different than most of those given here. Limits on course resources prevent us from completely supporting multiple environments. We'll help you as we can with installs on non-Windows platforms, but we cannot be responsible for any substantial research or debugging that may be required to get such a system to work correctly.

These installations do not need to be done all in one sitting; a convenient place to break is when a package's installation is complete. (Testing of that installation can be done at a later time.) We recommend you install the packages in the order given, as some later ones require the presence of earlier ones

You will need Java on your machine; we strongly recommend getting the latest version, Java 6.0 (also known as Java 1.6.0). If you do not already have it installed on your machine, or you want to update from an older version:

1. Go to http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp.

2. Choose either the JDK itself or JDK with the NetBeans development environment (don't choose the JRE--that does not have the compiler).

3. Accept the license; choose a Windows installation. (It's typically easiest and faster to choose the Online installation.)

4. Save the file to disk.

5. Launch the setup file you just downloaded.

6. Accept the license; click Next.

7. If you do not have Java already on your machine, you will be asked in which directory to install it; it's best to accept the default. (Some folks have had big hassles getting environment settings (see below) to work correctly when the folder is changed.)

8. Accept all default setup options; click Next until setup completes.

9. Click Finish.

10. Start->Control Panel->System>Advanced->Environment Variables->Under System Variables find the "Path" variable and Edit it; add this to the end of the Variable Value:
    (Important: never enter a space between the semicolon and C:)

    ;C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0\bin

    Then find the CLASSPATH variable. If it doesn't exist (if you've never used your system to develop Java code, it probably won't, ), click the New... button. For Variable Name enter CLASSPATH; for Variable Value enter

    ;.;C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0\lib

    or add that string onto the end of the existing CLASSPATH. (If you have installed a previous version of Java, instead of adding these references to the paths, change the exiting ones for the java BIN and LIB files to refer to the folder that contains Java the just-downloaded version of java -- it will be likely be jdk1.6.0.)

11. Click OK; click OK again; click OK again!

Java should now be ready to use. To check that the CLASSPATH and PATH variables are properly set, open a command window and enter javac -version. If the version prints (along with a bunch of help text), the PATH is working; if you get the message 'javac' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file, either the PATH is incorrect, or you did not start with a fresh command line window after you changed the PATH command. When trying to run a java program, if you get a ClassNotFoundException exception, check the CLASSPATH variable.

1. Go to http://www.cygwin.com; familiarize yourself with cygwin's purpose and structure (e.g. click on the links in the gray box on the left of the screen). We need the cygwin basic environment, zip and gnu C/C++ modules that can be incorporated into a cygwin installation.

2. Click on Install or update now!; save the setup.exe file to your hard drive.

3. Launch Setup.exe; click Next.

4. Make sure Install from Internet is selected; click Next.

5. We recommend leaving the directory and other settings on this screen as they are; click Next.

6. Here is selected a directory in which installation files will be stored; you can leave the default in place or change it, as you like; click Next. (This directory can be deleted if you wish once cygwin is installed--but if you need to update or augment your installation, it will take less time if it is present.)

7. You are likely directly connected to the Internet (be it by dialup, DSL or an on-campus connection); if so. leave this setting as is; if you are using a proxy server (and you will know if you are), click on that choice and supply the Proxy Host and Port; click Next.

8. Choose a download site; best is one in that is likely in the states, that is, a site that does not end in a two-letter country abbreviation: closer is usually faster. You will need the packages listed below and their dependencies.

9. The Select Packages window will appear; Make sure  the following modules are selected (installing additional components should not hurt anything, but will require a longer download and perhaps much more disk space). To install the given component click on the category (e.g. Admin) the click on the Skip next to the service (e.g., cygrunsrv). It will change to the latest version number and bin should become checked.

   • Admin -> cygrunsrv
   • Archive -> unzip
   • Archive -> zip
   • Devel -> gcc: C compiler upgrade helpers ( this will cause gcc-core and gcc-g++ compiler to be installed)
   • You can also install an editor: Editors->vim or emacs
   • If you are familiar with using "make" as a build tool install it too: Devel->make

   (These selections will cause other components to be automatically selected; they are needed to support the chosen one. Leave them selected.)

10. Click Next; installation should commence. It can take several minutes for installation to complete.

11. We recommend having a desktop icon and Start menu entry for cygwin, so leave the two boxes on this screen checked. Click Finish. Installation is complete; click OK.

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Installing MySQL and JDBC drivers
• You can obtain a .msi installation file for windows from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.1.html
• Instructions on using MySQL (mainly on Ubuntu, only meant to serve as guidelines)
  • MySQL server: http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Gutsy#MySQL
  • sudo apt-get install mysql-server-5.0
  • • JDBC driver: http://packages.ubuntu.com/gutsy/libs/libmysql-java
    • sudo apt-get install libmysql-java
  • Development docs: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/
  • To start MySQL: sudo /etc/init.d/mysql restart
  • To start client: shell> mysql -u root -p
  • A few commonly used commands:
    • shell> mysql -u root -p
    • mysql> use mysql
    • mysql> show tables;
    • mysql> create database mydb; # create a new database called "mydb"
  • The following statement creates an accout "mytestuser" and assigns the right privileges:
    • mysql> grant all privileges on mydb.* to mytestuser@"localhost" identified by 'mypassword';
    • Check:
      • http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/MySQL/Creating-Users-and-Setting-Permissions-in-MySQL/1/
      • http://www.java2s.com/Code/SQL/User-Permission/CreateUser.htm
  • login using the new account: shell> mysql -u mytestuser -p mydb
  • Create a new table
    • mysql> create table EngDict(word varchar(50), length INT);
  • Load data from a file to a table
    • mysql> LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE '/home/chenli/tmp/engdic.txt' INTO TABLE EngDict FIELDS TERMINATED BY '\t' LINES TERMINATED BY '\n' (word);
  • Dump query results to a file (in a shell):
    • shell> mysql -u root -p mydb -e "select word from EngDict;" > /home/chenli/tmp/queryresult.txt
• JDBC Examples
  • http://www.cs.unc.edu/Courses/comp118/docs/lessons/java/java_jdbc/jdbcServletMysql.html
  • http://www.stardeveloper.com/articles/display.html?article=2003090401&page=1
• After downloading JdbcExample.java type the following:
  • javac JdbcExample.java
  • java -classpath ".:/usr/share/java/mysql-connector-java-5.0.4.jar" JdbcExample