Often in projects you will be asked to send an email when an error occurs, or as a part of the functional process.
Unfortunatly it is sometimes a bit cumbersome to make sure you are not sending mail to real email addresses.. I’ve recently found a nice solution for this problem: a fake SMTP server!
This way, you only have to change the IP address on your SMTP endpoint instead of checking every emailaddress or disabling all the actual email functionality.
The application is called “FakeSMTP” (What’s in a name?) 🙂 and can be found through this link: http://nilhcem.github.com/FakeSMTP/index.html
As you can see in the screenshot, the program runs on the port you assign to it, acting as an email server with all the correct responses, with the only difference that it does not actually send out the emails. The emails are stored in a folder which you can specify. You can also double click on the message row in the program to open the email in your email client (in my case Outlook) which worked great for testing purposes.
I was quite pleased when I found this solution :-), hope it will help you guys too!
Oracle Service Bus SFTP: BEA-381801 InvalidHostFileException
I have just been working on an OSB SFTP business service, and got this error while testing the service.
While googling, I found out that you need to create a known_hosts file inside your OSB domain. The easiest way of creating a known_hosts file for me, was to use Cygwin and create a ssh (or sftp) connection to the destination.
Steps for the solution:
- Cygwin: log in to remote system via ssh (or sftp)
- Copy known_hosts file from ~/.ssh to OSB directory
- Test business service
Cygwin: login to remote system
Use this command to login to the remote system:
ssh username@hostname
Optionally: Type ‘yes’ when asked if you trust this host
This will create an entry in your known_hosts file in the .ssh folder in your cygwin home directory
This is a (scrambled) contents of the known_hosts file:
joris@jorisworkstation/cygdrive/c/Oracle/Middleware/user_projects/domains/joris_domain/config/osb $ cat ~/.ssh/known_hosts 10.200.242.65 ssh-rsa <<INSERT A LOT OF GARBLEGARBLE>>
Copy the known_hosts file to OSB
First we need to create the SFTP transports directory in the domain home:
Go to <<domain_home>>/config/osb and create this structure: (Only create the directories in RED)
- <<domain_home>>
- config
- osb
- transports
- sftp
We are now ready to copy the known_hosts file:
In cygwin:
 cp ~/.ssh/known_hosts /cygdrive/c/Oracle/Middleware/user_projects/domains/joris_domain/config/osb/transports/sftp
In Windows: Find known_hosts in your cygwin home folder (in my case: in C:\development\program\cygwin\home\joris.visscher\.ssh\known_hosts) and copy it to the newly created “sftp” folder in your domain home.
Test business service
All steps are now done, we can test the business service!
Additional information:
You will encounter the following error in your logs when this error occurs:
com.sshtools.j2ssh.transport.InvalidHostFileException
####<18-ott-2012 10.57.33 CEST> <Error> <SFTPTransport> <JORISWORKSTATION> <osb_server1> <[ACTIVE] ExecuteThread: '0' for queue: 'weblogic.kernel.Default (self-tuning)'> <<anonymous>> <> <cef9dbcf0859648a:31ba6f:13a730795ec:-8000-000000000000014f> <1350550653493> <BEA-381801> <Si â–’ verificato un errore per l'endpoint com.bea.wli.sb.transports.TransportException: com.sshtools.j2ssh.transport.InvalidHostFileException: Il file known_hosts non esiste o non dispone di autorizzazioni di lettura. com.bea.wli.sb.transports.TransportException: com.sshtools.j2ssh.transport.InvalidHostFileException: Il file known_hosts non esiste o non dispone di autorizzazioni di lettura. at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.sftp.connector.SFTPTransportProvider.sendMessage(SFTPTransportProvider.java:155) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.sftp.connector.SFTPTransportProvider.sendMessageAsync(SFTPTransportProvider.java:110) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.Util$1.invoke(Util.java:83) at $Proxy122.sendMessageAsync(Unknown Source) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.LoadBalanceFailoverListener.sendMessageAsync(LoadBalanceFailoverListener.java:148) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.LoadBalanceFailoverListener.sendMessageToServiceAsync(LoadBalanceFailoverListener.java:603) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.LoadBalanceFailoverListener.sendMessageToService(LoadBalanceFailoverListener.java:538) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.TransportManagerImpl.sendMessageToService(TransportManagerImpl.java:566) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.TransportManagerImpl.sendMessageAsync(TransportManagerImpl.java:434) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.service.ServiceMessageSender.send0(ServiceMessageSender.java:380) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.service.ServiceMessageSender.access$000(ServiceMessageSender.java:79) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.service.ServiceMessageSender$1.run(ServiceMessageSender.java:137) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.service.ServiceMessageSender$1.run(ServiceMessageSender.java:135) at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:363) at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:146) at com.bea.wli.sb.security.WLSSecurityContextService.runAs(WLSSecurityContextService.java:55) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.service.ServiceMessageSender.send(ServiceMessageSender.java:140) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.service.ServiceProcessor.invoke(ServiceProcessor.java:454) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.TestServiceImpl.invoke(TestServiceImpl.java:172) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.client.ejb.TestServiceEJBBean.invoke(TestServiceEJBBean.java:167) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.client.ejb.TestService_sqr59p_EOImpl.__WL_invoke(Unknown Source) at weblogic.ejb.container.internal.SessionRemoteMethodInvoker.invoke(SessionRemoteMethodInvoker.java:40) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.client.ejb.TestService_sqr59p_EOImpl.invoke(Unknown Source) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.client.ejb.TestService_sqr59p_EOImpl_WLSkel.invoke(Unknown Source) at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicServerRef.invoke(BasicServerRef.java:667) at weblogic.rmi.cluster.ClusterableServerRef.invoke(ClusterableServerRef.java:230) at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicServerRef$1.run(BasicServerRef.java:522) at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:363) at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:146) at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicServerRef.handleRequest(BasicServerRef.java:518) at weblogic.rmi.internal.wls.WLSExecuteRequest.run(WLSExecuteRequest.java:118) at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:252) at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:221) Caused By: com.sshtools.j2ssh.transport.InvalidHostFileException: Il file known_hosts non esiste o non dispone di autorizzazioni di lettura. at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.sftp.client.KnownHostVerifier.validateKnownHosts(KnownHostVerifier.java:144) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.sftp.client.SFTPClient.authenticate(SFTPClient.java:108) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.sftp.connector.SFTPResource.<init>(SFTPResource.java:78) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.sftp.resource.SFTPUtils.createSFTPResource(SFTPUtils.java:170) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.sftp.resource.SFTPConnectionPool.getResource(SFTPConnectionPool.java:104) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.sftp.connector.SFTPTransportProvider.getSFTPResource(SFTPTransportProvider.java:958) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.sftp.connector.SFTPTransportProvider.sendMessage(SFTPTransportProvider.java:145) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.sftp.connector.SFTPTransportProvider.sendMessageAsync(SFTPTransportProvider.java:110) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.Util$1.invoke(Util.java:83) at $Proxy122.sendMessageAsync(Unknown Source) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.LoadBalanceFailoverListener.sendMessageAsync(LoadBalanceFailoverListener.java:148) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.LoadBalanceFailoverListener.sendMessageToServiceAsync(LoadBalanceFailoverListener.java:603) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.LoadBalanceFailoverListener.sendMessageToService(LoadBalanceFailoverListener.java:538) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.TransportManagerImpl.sendMessageToService(TransportManagerImpl.java:566) at com.bea.wli.sb.transports.TransportManagerImpl.sendMessageAsync(TransportManagerImpl.java:434) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.service.ServiceMessageSender.send0(ServiceMessageSender.java:380) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.service.ServiceMessageSender.access$000(ServiceMessageSender.java:79) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.service.ServiceMessageSender$1.run(ServiceMessageSender.java:137) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.service.ServiceMessageSender$1.run(ServiceMessageSender.java:135) at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:363) at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:146) at com.bea.wli.sb.security.WLSSecurityContextService.runAs(WLSSecurityContextService.java:55) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.service.ServiceMessageSender.send(ServiceMessageSender.java:140) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.service.ServiceProcessor.invoke(ServiceProcessor.java:454) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.TestServiceImpl.invoke(TestServiceImpl.java:172) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.client.ejb.TestServiceEJBBean.invoke(TestServiceEJBBean.java:167) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.client.ejb.TestService_sqr59p_EOImpl.__WL_invoke(Unknown Source) at weblogic.ejb.container.internal.SessionRemoteMethodInvoker.invoke(SessionRemoteMethodInvoker.java:40) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.client.ejb.TestService_sqr59p_EOImpl.invoke(Unknown Source) at com.bea.wli.sb.test.client.ejb.TestService_sqr59p_EOImpl_WLSkel.invoke(Unknown Source) at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicServerRef.invoke(BasicServerRef.java:667) at weblogic.rmi.cluster.ClusterableServerRef.invoke(ClusterableServerRef.java:230) at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicServerRef$1.run(BasicServerRef.java:522) at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:363) at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:146) at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicServerRef.handleRequest(BasicServerRef.java:518) at weblogic.rmi.internal.wls.WLSExecuteRequest.run(WLSExecuteRequest.java:118) at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:252) at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:221)
Create sample XML message from XSD in Eclipse (Free solution!)
On an Oracle Service Bus project you are often supplied with XSD’s or WSDL’s when you’re integrating with clients. The customer or client expects you to test their web service but before you do, you might want to take a look at the XML which should be sent to make sure you’re sending compliant XML.
One way to do this is by importing the WSDL in SoapUI and creating sample test requests, this comes in quite handy when you are actually using a WSDL, but what if the customer only supplies an XSD? SoapUI does not support creating sample XML from an XSD element.
There are several commercial products which can solve this problem but if you’re only looking for generating sample XML messages from XSD, you might want to look at using Eclipse’s built in XML generating option:
First step is to import the XSD in your project, the right click the Schema and select “Generate” and then “XML”
You will be presented with a “New XML file” dialogue which lets you save your new XML sample. Choose any location you want, and click “Next”. Then you will be presented with the options for your new XML sample. Select the options you desire and press “Finish”
Your new XML file has been generated and ofcourse is compliant with your XSD right now!
How to start with Oracle Service Bus (OSB) development
This post is meant to explain the few steps you need to take to start with Oracle Service Bus (OSB) development on a Windows 7 laptop. The OSB version used is 11g, although these steps are also suitable for OSB 10gR3 and Aqualogic Service Bus (ALSB) as well.
There are as many ways of organizing a project as there are people, this is the way I have chosen and this by no means is meant as “the way to go“. It is merely meant as a guideline, (so please do adapt where you find it more suitable for your needs)
(You can find the installation instructions for an OSB 11g development environment in this blog post)
There are two OSB projects which you can create when you open the Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse (OEPE):
- Oracle Service Bus Project
- Oracle Service Bus Configuration Project
An OSB Project contains the actual project which you will create. These are often functionally bound and represent a hierarchical structure similar to the structure on your hard disk.
An OSB Configuration Project represents one domain on which you will deploy your projects. These Configuration Projects contain common settings (like a pointer to an SMTP server)
Create an OSB Configuration Project
The first step in a every new OSB Workspace is to create a new configuration project. Later on when you create OSB projects you need to choose the Configuration Project to which they will belong.
Side note: OSB Configuration Projects can be used as pointers to a OSB Domain (or a local domain)
Within Eclipse, right click the empty space in the Project Explorer and choose “New” and then “Oracle Service Bus Configuration Project”. For now we will not use the advanced functions so name your Configuration project to a name suitable for you (for me that mostly means “OSB Configuration”) and press “Finish”
In a new Workspace you will get the question if you would like to switch to the “Oracle Service Bus perspective”, choose “Yes”.
The above steps are the same for every project. I keep my workspaces aligned with the domains to which I deploy.
This means a new workspace for each domain, I often work with common schema’s and services (e.g. loggers / mailers) which I place in a separate project. Although I do re-use a lot of services, I found it better to keep this lean and not to tightly coupled so I create a new Common Services project for each domain instead of creating ONE Project to rule them all.
Create an OSB Project
This paragraph will focus on creating an OSB Project and will contain a sample service.
Right click the empty space in the “Project Explorer” and choose “New” and then “Oracle Service Bus Project”
For the start of every new project you will create the following structure:
- Project name (In this case “OSB Sample Project”)
- Business Service
- Proxy Service
- Schema
- Transformation
- WSDL
This leads to this view:
This is the basis you need for creating Oracle Service Bus services. I will expand in further detail in later posts.
Create a local development OSB domain
If you do not have a development environment available or prefer to test your service locally you can also create a OSB domain on your local machine. The next paragraph leads you through the creation of a new OSB domain via Eclipse.
We will use the “Configuration Wizard” which will let us create a fresh new local Weblogic domain on our computer.
Press “Start” / the Windows button and enter “Configuration Wizard” which will show the start menu entry in the OSB menu folder:
If all went well, you will be presented with this choice:
Choose “Create a new Weblogic domain” and click “Next” to continue to the product selection:
Only select “Oracle Service Bus for developers – 11.1.1.6 [Oracle_OSB1]”, this will automatically select the dependencies as well. Click “Next” to continue to the Domain name and location screen:
Tip:Â I tend to use a domain name which indicates that I am working on my own machine as well as states the product and version which is deployed on the Weblogic server. The domain name is quite visible in the web console and this way I’m sure I’m working on the correct domain.
Enter the domain name you wish and press “Next” to continue to the admin user name and password screens:
Since 11g the password is bound to rules which prohibit you from choosing a really simple password. So with this added difficulty make sure you pick one which you will remember!
When you’re done, click “Next” on every screen until you get to the configuration summary.
The configuration is done when you select “Create”, your domain will then be created, after which you will be presented with this summary:
Click “Done” to exit the configuration wizard. We will not start the Admin server yet.
We can now continue to configuring Eclipse to use this domain.
Add our local OSB domain to Eclipse
This paragraph explains how to configure an OSB domain in Eclipse. It is possible to configure a remote (DEV) domain here which is running on another server. I would advise to only configure local domains within your Eclipse, a DEV environment is often shared among colleagues and you might overwrite or tamper with your fellow colleague his or her services without knowing it.
As a guideline: Use the DEV environment to test project exports and see if those are working without problems.
Start Eclipse and choose your workspace.
First activate the “Servers” tab in the bottom window, as shown in the screenshot below:
Then right click the empty space in the window and select “New” and then “Server”.
Just to make sure you don’t encounter strange behavior when you deploy to production, you should always choose and use the same version for development and deployment. In this example we choose “Oracle WebLogic Server 11gR1 (10.3.6)”:
Again: Although it is not necessary, I do like to rename the domain name (Server’s host name) to a value which will show me that I’m working local and on which version.
In the following examples we will also log into the Application server Weblogic via the web console. This Weblogic domain is also named “local_osb_11g” which again helps you to identify the domain when you’re shifting between local / DTAP environments.
For your consideration: Depending on your needs you can later on create several local domains. If you are working on two projects at the same time it makes sense to create two domains.
Most of the time I re-use one domain since you can redeploy all projects in your workspace within a minute. This way you are also absolutely sure that your local configuration is always the way you expect it to be.
In general: Most clients will use one configuration profile for all OSB domains.
After pressing “Next” you will be presented with the Domain Directory selection dialogue, where you will need to adjust three settings:
- Choose “Local” as “Server type”
- Choose your newly created domain via the dropdown and “Known Domains”
- Select “Always start Weblogic server in debug mode” to ease debugging later on
Press “Next” to select the resources which we will deploy on our local domain.
Add the Configuration Project you wish and click “Next” in the next three screens. Click “Finish” in the last screen to finalize your domain configuration:
If you are successful you should have a bottom window looking like this:
We are now ready to start this local server and deploy our newly created Projects.
Right click the top line (which stands for the domain) and select “Start”.
Side note:Â You can also start the domain via the start menu or straight through the command shell by using “startWeblogic.cmd”. In my installation, it is located at:Â C:\Oracle\middleware\osb11g\user_projects\domains\local_osb_11g\bin
The tab “Console” will activate and will show the details of the server starting. It will take a minute or two but when the local domain is started you will see the following line:
<10-jul-2012 1:20:47 uur CEST> <Notice> <WebLogicServer> <BEA-000360> <Server started in RUNNING mode>
Open a internet browser and go to the following URI to open the OSB web console to access your synchronized brand new OSB domain:
http://localhost:7001/sbconsole
After logging in with the user “weblogic” and the password you’ve chosen, it should look like this:
You can see the OSB projects you’ve deployed to this server via the button “Project Explorer”.
Note: You can also develop new services via this SBConsole, most functions which are available via Eclipse also exist in the SBConsole.
That’s it! You are now fully equipped with a running OSB domain on your machine and can start developing and running your own web services.
Oracle Service Bus 11gR1 IDE Eclipse OEPE installation on Windows 7
Follow these steps to setup a development environment for Oracle Service Bus 11gR1 (11.1.1.6 is used in this example)
Download these components:
- Oracle WebLogic Server 11gR1 (10.3.6) and Coherence and OEPE for Windows (32-bit)Â (Part Number: V24367-01)
- Oracle Service Bus 11g (11.1.1.6.0)Â (Part Number:Â V29756-01)
I could not find these files through the Oracle.com website but you can download previous versions through the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud. These two installation files can be found in this category:
Product Pack:Â Oracle Fusion Middleware
Platform:Â Microsoft Windows (32bit)
Choose media pack:Â Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Media Pack for Microsoft Windows (32-bit)Â 11.1.1.6.0Â (Part number: B55383-41)
Product Pack:Â Oracle Fusion Middleware
Platform:Â Microsoft Windows (32bit)
Choose media pack:Â Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Media Pack for Microsoft Windows (32-bit)Â 11.1.1.6.0Â (Part number: B55383-41)
(Tip: Search for the Part numbers to make sure you download the correct versions)
First, install WebLogic Server with Oracle WebLogic Server 11gR1 + Coherence + OEPE and then install Oracle Service Bus.
When you install OSB, be sure to select the OEPE that is located inside the middleware directory.
After both installations, in the directory “Middleware directory/oepe_11gR1PS2” is eclipse.exe. If you execute this file, you can open Eclipse and start with creating an osb project.
Side note;
Some people can’t see the OSB perspective in Eclipse after this installation. Apparently it’s a rights issue which can be solved by navigating to the Oracle_OSB directory via Windows Explorer. You will be asked for permission to access that directory and after that dialogue you will be able to open the OSB perspective within Eclipse.
Unlock HR user and schema in Oracle Database
In an Oracle database there is a sample user called “HR”. This user comes with a schema which contains data which is quite convenient for demo purposes.
You can unlock this user using the following steps:
- Connect to your database with the system user
- Execute the following command (Note: replace “password” with your password)
ALTER USER HR IDENTIFIED BY password ACCOUNT UNLOCK;
- Log in to the database with the HR user and your specified password
You can use this user for tutorials / demo’s in almost all Oracle databases since the tables are all equal.
Ps. I’ve posted this small tutorial mainly because it will serve as a prerequisite for other tutorials.
Schema size in Oracle DB
I’ve been running out of disk space on my virtual machine and didn’t want to mount another volume to add more room (because the problem isn’t more room; it’s that I’m sloppy with disk space) 🙂
So I was looking around on how to easily query for the schema size to find out which little project of mine was taking up way too much room. I found a nice solution on this blog:
SELECT tablespace_name
, SUM(bytes)/1024/1024 AS total_size_mb
FROM dba_segments
WHERE owner = Upper('&User_Name')
GROUP BY owner
, rollup(tablespace_name);
When you run the query it’ll ask you which user you want to check:
SQL Developer, Comma's before columns!
I’ve been using SQL Developer a lot lately for data analysis and I’ve been getting used to the auto formatting to easily create well readable code out of my garbled-“I’m in a hurry”-SQL-mess.
This works like a charm, except for the comma’s which kept showing up at the end of the column names after the auto formatting, a small annoyance which is easily solved with this trick.
This is the default auto-formatting which is used by SQL Developer:
SELECT t1.column1, t1.column2, t2.column3 FROM table1 t1 JOIN table2 t2 ON t1.value1 = t2.value2;
You can change this behaviour by accessing the following settings:
Tools -> Preferences -> Database -> SQL Formatting -> Oracle Formatting -> Press button “Edit”
In the Oracle Formatting window: Line-breaks -> Select “Before comma” and deselect “After comma”
After this trick, the default formatting will have this code as a result:
SELECT t1.column1 , t1.column2 , t2.column3 FROM table1 t1 JOIN table2 t2 ON t1.value1 = t2.value2;
Â
Happy querying! 🙂
Select sample WS Callouts straight from your Oracle DB
It’s often nice to have the most recent data when you want to test a web service, so in the best scenario you would want to query existing data with some criteria such as active contracts and/or within a certain range.
This example will show you how to get ready-to-use web service callout requests from SQL Developer (or any other SQL tool) which can be used in a Service Bus Console or SoapUI. We will use the HR example database -which can be found in every Oracle DB- as the source.
This is the request which we’ll use:
select '<v1:IncreaseSalaryRequest xmlns:v1="http://example.joris.visscher/hr/types/v1/"> <v1:EmployeeId> <v1:Type>DEFAULT</v1:Type> <v1:Identifier>'||emp.employee_id||'</v1:Identifier> </v1:EmployeeId> <v1:FirstName>'||emp.first_name||'</v1:FirstName> <v1:LastName>'||emp.last_name||'</v1:LastName> <v1:Department> <v1:Type>DEFAULT</v1:Type> <v1:Identifier>'||dep.department_id||'</v1:Identifier> </v1:Department> </v1:IncreaseSalaryRequest>' WSRequest from employees emp , departments dep where emp.department_id = dep.department_id -- Let's add some conditions which are needed to finish the process succesfully. and emp.last_name is not null and dep.department_name = 'IT' -- return the most valuable employees -- We only need 5 results. and rownum <= 5;
This will result in five instantly usable requests from live data so we’ll know for sure that all the criteria that should be met for a functional correct case are indeed met:
<v1:IncreaseSalaryRequest xmlns:v1="http://example.joris.visscher/hr/types/v1/">
<v1:EmployeeId>
<v1:Type>DEFAULT</v1:Type>
<v1:Identifier>103</v1:Identifier>
</v1:EmployeeId>
<v1:FirstName>Alexander</v1:FirstName>
<v1:LastName>Hunold</v1:LastName>
<v1:Department>
<v1:Type>DEFAULT</v1:Type>
<v1:Identifier>60</v1:Identifier>
</v1:Department>
</v1:IncreaseSalaryRequest>
This query should work on most databases, but it works on an Oracle DB for sure 🙂
Happy testing!
Use XSLT to display your RSS feeds on Google Chrome (Live Bookmark alternative)
I’ve recently made the transition from Firefox to Chrome as my main browser. Unfortunatly there still isn’t an alternative on Google Chrome for the Live Bookmark functionality which I used on Firefox, and this might not come soon according to these sources:
RSS Live Bookmarks @ Google Support forums
I did found this link, the extension was a bit too buggy for me (but maybe you’ll be fine)
Chrome Web Store – Live Bookmarks
While trying several extentions I did not find one which offers the same functionality as the Live Bookmarks on Firefox, only RSS readers which wouldn’t work as intended.
My use for these rss feeds is to point to servers and/or environments. So it’s more used as a dynamic bookmark than as a RSS reader. The bookmarks are placed on a local server at my company so our operations department only has to update 1 resource when there are updates.
The end result isn’t exactly the same as the live bookmark in Firefox but to me it’s a pretty good alternative:
Instructions:
First we’ll show you the XML which is used for this RSS feed:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"> <channel> <title>jorisvisscher.wordpress.com Example RSS Feed</title> <link>http://localhost/links/example.xml</link> <description>Example RSS Feed for showing XSLT transformation</description> <atom:link href="http://localhost/links/example.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <item> <title>====== First Category ======</title> <link>http://google.com</link> </item> <item> <title>Local ALSB Server</title> <link>http://localhost:7001/console</link> </item> <item> <title>Local WLS Server</title> <link>http://localhost:7002/console</link> </item> <item> <title>Local BPM Workspace</title> <link>http://localhost:8585/workspace</link> </item> <item> <title>====== Second Category ======</title> <link>http://google.com</link> </item> <item> <title>Link to another server</title> <link>http://notlocalhost:7001:sbconsole</link> </item> <item> <title>Link to yet another server</title> <link>http://notlocahost:7001/console</link> </item> </channel> </rss>
Previously on Firefox this feed would look like this:
Without a XSLT transformation, this RSS feed would look like this when opened in Google Chrome:
This ofcourse isn’t useful since we can’t click on the links. To fix this, we’ll add the following line to the XML file:
<?xml-stylesheet href="rss.xsl" type="text/xsl" media="screen"?>
The RSS Feed would look then like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <?xml-stylesheet href="rss.xsl" type="text/xsl" media="screen"?> <rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"> <channel> <title>jorisvisscher.wordpress.com Example RSS Feed</title> <link>http://localhost/links/example.xml</link> <description>Example RSS Feed for showing XSLT transformation</description> <atom:link href="http://localhost/links/example.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <item> <title>====== First Category ======</title> <link>http://google.com</link> </item> <item> <title>Local ALSB Server</title> <link>http://localhost:7001/console</link> </item> <item> <title>Local WLS Server</title> <link>http://localhost:7002/console</link> </item> <item> <title>Local BPM Workspace</title> <link>http://localhost:8585/workspace</link> </item> <item> <title>====== Second Category ======</title> <link>http://google.com</link> </item> <item> <title>Link to another server</title> <link>http://notlocalhost:7001:sbconsole</link> </item> <item> <title>Link to yet another server</title> <link>http://notlocahost:7001/console</link> </item> </channel> </rss>
As you can see, we are pointing to a xslt file to transform our RSS feed for use on the screen (or any other XML file for that matter). Place the XSLT file in the same directory as the RSS feed, or adjust the locator to the correct URL.
This is the XSLT file which we’ll use:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">
<xsl:output method="html"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:apply-templates select="/rss/channel"/>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="/rss/channel">
<div>
<h3><xsl:value-of select="title"/></h3>
<p><xsl:value-of select="description"/></p>
</div>
<div>
<xsl:apply-templates select="item"/>
</div>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="/rss/channel/item">
<div>
<a href="{link}" rel="bookmark"><xsl:value-of select="title"/></a>
<xsl:value-of select="description"/>
</div>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Please note; It’s pretty basic, I didn’t do much formatting since I’m not that much of a CSS guru 🙂
When opened in Google Chrome, it will look like this:
Which is completely usable for me, since I don’t need Firefox anymore for my live bookmarks.
Happy bookmarking!