There's no pre-defined method to count the number of occurrences of a certain character in a database table column using SQL. There's a quick and dirty way to get it done however. In my case, I wanted to figure out how many lines existed in a column that held address information, separated by line b...

I was having problems doing operations on a java.util.List object returned by Arrays.asList() method call. The specific exception was a java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException. I soon found out why this was a problem.I like to use Arrays.asList as a nice one-line List creation tool. But, it turns ou...

I'm working on a project that utilizes JPA/Hibernate as its ORM. I was writing a few named queries for an JPQL/HQL delete and was getting an SQLGrammarException. I soon found out that I couldn't use inner joins on a delete statement, even at the SQL level. Here's the query transformation:I originall...

First-class objects are the norm in the code that I usually write and edit, but every now and then I run across a method with a primitive parameter. I use EasyMock a lot in testing, and need to find these methods by reflection, this is how it's done...This code:@Test(groups = {"unit"}) public void t...

In Oracle's SQL Developer 1.5 tool, there seems to be a crazy bug where one can't see the full timestamp value (including time) by default. You can change this by running this awesome piece of code...alter session set nls_date_format = 'MM/DD/YYYY HH24:MI:SS';

Facelets is a great template framework that sits on top of JSF. They have some fun template includes and parameters that you can pass into the included templates. Here is an example with one gotcha pertaining to the parameter name.If I want to do an include and pass in some sort of parameter value, ...

In software development, be DRY, and define data once. But, what if that data needs to be used in many places? This is the case with parts of a web page, for instance, that are common to many different pages. Django has a great mechanism for this: it is context processors.You can define a context pr...

Sometimes bland text on a webpage needs a little spicing up with an image. Instead of having to mess with markup, this text can be replaced with an image. Plus, the remaining text in the markup allows for better screen-reader access. There is a fair amount of discussion on the best way to do this. O...

Hibernate's @Enumerated annotation seems much too brittle in the case of using it with EnumType.ORDINAL. If you're using EnumType.STRING, I think it works beautifully. This is because the annotation can use the name of the enum to make the mapping. In the case of ORDINAL, the value of the enum is us...

Java is about objects. Reflection is about knowing things about those objects generally without have specific fields and methods in hand. I must get to one of those field values via its accessor, allowing me to keep the fields private and abstracted away... of course, until I start unit testing. Her...

Sometimes it's useful to know what the invariant value is for your loop within a facelets loop. I use ui:repeat a lot, but have seen some problems with it in the past. If you want to get the loop index for your ui:repeat, you may be disappointed. Basically, it requires that you use a different loopi...

Facelets is a great addition to jsf. It is very extensible, and it makes creating custom components even easier. It's fantastic. This is almost TOO easy. If you have a pile of view markup and/or client-side logic, then this is a good option. And by good, I mean awesome.In memory of a good sandwich p...

Here's an important tidbit... JSF does not give any default validators for your data if you use a custom converter. If you're getting a ValidationError exception, overriding equals and hashcode methods might be a good idea. For more, read on...Here was my code: I was seeing a lot of this:assignmentC...

I wanted to count packets coming back and forth while telnet'ing to test out some different email protocols on our mail server and found this nifty little utility: it's called EtherApe. Supposedly it's a clone of Etherman, which, if it has clones, probably costs money.(http://picasaweb.google.com/lh...

It stinks when your jsf components don't do what they're supposed to or even what they usually do. This was the case with my h:inputText field when trying to submit a null value -- but! only within a ui:repeat component.It stinks when your jsf components don't do what they're supposed to or even wha...

Meet the new web. The simpler the better. The cleaner the better. The more pleasing the colors the better. The fuzzier feelings the better. The latest fuzzies have been brought on by a slew of modals. Previously, we haven't used many modals in our layouts and designs, so here's the first working pat...

It's important to understand what libraries, utilities, engines and so on that are used by your Ubuntu Linux OS. It's easy to tell if you only have on option -- of course, it uses the only thing available. But if there are multiple options, which does it use? In general, the default; Here's how to s...

Comments are essential to Subversion checkins. A good text editor is essential to a good comment. Here's how to set the editor of your choice to pop up when you do an svn checkin.Comments are essential to Subversion checkins. A good text editor is essential to a good comment. Here's how to set the e...

Debugging time is a blessed time in one's day where the hotkeys for continue, step into, step over, and others often grace the pads of the programmer's fingers. This can be quite a rewarding experience. Now ponder on the disappointment that materializes on the programmer's crestfallen brow when the ...

Sometimes it's desirable to be able to have a null or "none of these" option for a dropdown. I've gotten tripped up on the syntax a couple times and have found enough variance in "solutions" listed on forums that I'll just add to the mix and record what works well for me here.Sometimes it's desirabl...

In projects that create project meta data or compiled class files in the same directory as source, svn commits can be particularly cluttered with those files that we really don't care to keep under version control. This is where svn:ignore can beceome our good friend.In projects that create project ...

It is one of the nicest things to be able to work remotely. Almost all my jobs have allowed this. My current job allows it on a limited basis as well. It's even more attractive an option now that I have a nice desk chair at home, for which I currently long, because I'm currently typing up this post ...

For our view layer on our current project at work, we use JSF/Facelets + some jQuery goodness. I have found that at some times these two tech's have a hard time working with each other. I ocassionally have problems with the id's. Here's a nice little way to guarantee you id's are awesome.For our vie...

Development on JEE projects can be a real pain sometime. 1/2 of this (sometimes in literal minutes) is because of the need to spin up the server in order to run your code. This server startup time can be a killer of one's development momentum.True to its mantra, IntelliJ IDEA delivers some goodness ...

As awesome as Linux is, I still have moments where I want something from the Windows world. Shy of putting a whole dual-booted partition on my harddrive, I am doing the virtual machine gig. I have tried VMWare before, but have just found the whole experience rather clunky. I even found VirtualPC (ru...

I love the volume control scheme for Vista that allows one to adjust the volume on a per-application basis. It turns out that this functionality is also available for Linux!I love the volume control scheme for Vista that allows one to adjust the volume on a per-application basis. It turns out that t...

All over the net, there are questions asked about running Crystal Reports in Linux. This isn't a solution for running Crystal in Linux per se, but running Crystal as lightweight as possible on a Linux host machine. This means, run a VM, install Crystal, and use a small Oracle client.All over the net...

One of the stinky things about having a VM is that is can be difficult to transfer files to and from the host machine. You generally have everything that you need on the host machine and don't want to re-download stuff, burn CD's, or go through any of that jazz. Sharing folders is probably the best ...

The amount of content on the blog and its pages has become substantial (in length only) enough to make it a worthwhile idea to paginate it (spread the content over multiple pages). Django makes it very easy! There are some nice objects available for paginating.The amount of content on the blog and i...

Our goal is to create a history audit tool that fires automatically, tracks only selected fields, categorizes those fields, and saves old vs. new data.We'll cover interceptor config, data types, dependency Injection, and alternate EntityListeners.The one option that I found that met all these requir...