Hello,

A new version of Metastorage was released providing several new
features, being the most important the newly added support to generate
classes for extracting data for report generation or other kinds of bulk
processing.

Read the whole news article here:

http://www.meta-language.net/news-2005-06-06-metastorage.html

--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

"Sorry, for the time being
WebStorage is not availabel."

Comments in the page compile.php.

this my directory structure:

d:\webserver\
d:\webserver\metal\
d:\webserver\metal\forms
d:\webserver\metal\metabase
d:\webserver\metal\metal
d:\webserver\metal\metastorage
d:\webserver\metal\readarguments
d:\webserver\metal\xmlparser

Thank
Yitno










____________________________________________________
Sell on Yahoo! Auctions – no fees. Bid on great items.
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

Hello,

on 07/08/2005 06:50 AM abu abdillah said the following:
> "Sorry, for the time being
> WebStorage is not availabel."
>
> Comments in the page compile.php.
>
> this my directory structure:
>
> d:\webserver\
> d:\webserver\metal\
> d:\webserver\metal\forms
> d:\webserver\metal\metabase
> d:\webserver\metal\metal
> d:\webserver\metal\metastorage
> d:\webserver\metal\readarguments
> d:\webserver\metal\xmlparser

This seems like an installation error. Please go in the directory
d:\webserver\metal\metastorage\applications\webstorage\configuration and
create a file named local_options with the following contents:

<?php
          $this->debug=1;
?>

Then run WebStorage again and it should show a more explicit error
message. Just let me know what the error message says so I can determine
what is wrong to advise.



--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

Hello,

After a long time without significant enhancements to Metabase, I am
finally adding support to database schema features like auto-increment
fields and primary keys. Future versions of Metastorage will generate
code that takes advantage of these features.

Currently the new Metabase version is in alpha stage as the support for
these features is not completely done. Here is the status:

- autoincrement is a new option of the schema of table fields. It
automatically expands to integer, notnull, default 0 and primary key.

- There are two new functions in the API GetNextKey and GetInsertedKey.
GetNextKey determines what to put in an insert statement in the place of
the value an auto-increment field. GetInsertedKey retrieves the last
inserted value in autoincrement field. These functions are run before
and after an insert query respectively.

- primarykey is a new section of table schema definition. The definition
is similar to indexes but you can only have one primary key per table.

- These features are implemented in the drivers for MySQL, PostgreSQL
and Oracle. If you have access to other databases like Microsoft SQL
server, Interbase, Informix, SQLite, Access/ODBC, mini-SQL, please let
me know because currently I am not able to test the new features in all
these databases.

- Altering tables with primary keys or autoincrement fields is not yet
implemented.

- There is a new database manager API function named
CreateDetailedTable. This is an extension of the CreateTable function to
allow for creation of tables with primary keys and other features in the
future. It supports a check mode that lets the schema manager know if
the described table can be created by the database driver.

- The schema manager now performs a safety check when installing or
altering databases with new tables. If it is not possible to install a
table because the current driver does not support some features, nothing
is changed in the database and the schema manager will return an
explanatory error message.

- Schema reverse engineering of database tables with auto-increment
fields or primary keys is not yet implemented.

- The driver test suite has now a new test named autoincrement that
tries to insert a few records in a new table with an autoincrement field
and verifies if it worked correctly. You may look into the
driver_test.php script for how auto-increment support works.

- There will be a new function to set a value of a prepared query to the
next auto-increment value of a table. This is not yet implemented but of
course will only work with insert queries.

These changes are available in CVS. You may find instructions on how to
obtain access to the CVS server or a download daily snapshots from here:

http://www.meta-language.net/download.html

Please test these changes looking and running the driver_test.php script
and provide your feedback.


--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

Hello,

Due to the growing interest of Metastorage among Portuguese speaking
users, mainly from Brazil, I have created a new list to discuss
Metastorage matters in Portuguese. Subscribe instructions follow below.

In portuguese:

Devido ao interesse crescente no Metastorage entre os utilizadores que
falam Potuguês, eu criei uma lista de discussão sobre Metastorage para
ser usada por essa comunidade. Para se inscrever vá a esta página:

http://br.groups.yahoo.com/group/metastorage-pt/

Ou envie uma mensagem para:

metastorage-pt-subscribe@...

--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

Enter your vote today!  A new poll has been created for the
metal-dev group:

If you are using or planing to use Metastorage, with which
database or databases do you plan to use Metastorage
generated code? (your choices are secret and your privacy is
assured)

   o Frontbase
   o IBM DB2
   o Informix
   o Interbase/Firebird
   o JDBC (database with Java JDBC drivers)
   o MaxDB (SAP)
   o Microsoft Access
   o Microsoft SQL server
   o Mini-SQL
   o ODBC (local drivers)
   o ODBTP (remote Windows database ODBC drivers)
   o Oracle
   o PDO (database with drivers for PHP 5 PDO extension)
   o PostgreSQL
   o SQLite (PHP 5 extension)
   o Sybase
   o Other


To vote, please visit the following web page:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/metal-dev/surveys?id=12118553

Note: Please do not reply to this message. Poll votes are
not collected via email. To vote, you must go to the Yahoo! Groups
web site listed above.

Thanks!

Hello,

I am adding new features to Metabase in order to improve the
capabilities of the code generated by Metastorage.

Since it will not be possible to enhance all Metabase drivers now, I
would like you to help telling which databases you are using or plan to
use Metastorage generated code, so I can give priority to enhance first
the Metabase drivers for the most requested databases.

Please just go in this page and indicate one or more databases that you
want to use Metastorage generated code:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/metal-dev/surveys?id=12118553

--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

Hello,

I have noticed that I missed MySQL in the survey of databases. If you
have voted before yesterday and did not see MySQL, please vote again
because I had to fix the survey and lost all the current votes.

Also, if you have specified the options, ODBC, PDO, JDBC or other, I
would appreciate if you could tell me which underlying databases would
you like to use with these APIs.


I am adding new features to Metabase in order to improve the
capabilities of the code generated by Metastorage.

Since it will not be possible to enhance all Metabase drivers now, I
would like you to help telling which databases you are using or plan to
use Metastorage generated code, so I can give priority to enhance first
the Metabase drivers for the most requested databases.

Please just go in this page and indicate one or more databases that you
want to use Metastorage generated code:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/metal-dev/surveys?id=12118553

--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

Hello,

A new Metabase release is imminent. All new features were implemented,
tested and documented. I am just finishing to update the tutorials and
tomorrow I expect to make a release.

The current development of Metabase features is mostly motivated to
address needs of Metastorage. Since it takes a lot of time to enhance
all the available drivers to implement the new features, for now only
MySQL, PostgreSQL and Oracle drivers were updated.

In case you are not yet aware, I have put up a survey to figure which
other drivers would be worth investing time to update, giving priority
to databases that users that really intend to use Metastorage want to
use. So, if you want to use Metastorage, please go to this survey page
and indicate which database or databases you want to use Metastorage.

After a long time without significant enhancements to Metabase, I am
finally adding support to database schema features like auto-increment
fields and primary keys. Future versions of Metastorage will generate
code that takes advantage of these features.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/metal-dev/surveys?id=12118553

If you don't know what Metastorage is, it is a code generator tool that
generate classes of objects that perform object-relational mapping based
on a model definition in a XML format.

This is basically meant to provide dramatic improvement in the quality
of PHP database application development, reducing drastically the
development time, especially of medium or large scale applications.

http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html


As for this release of Metabase it provides:

- Support for auto-increment key fields in a database independent way.
It works very well even on databases like Oracle that do not support
auto-increment fields natively.

There are new API functions to support auto-increment fields:
GetNextKey, GetInsertedKey, and SetQueryKey which is a very innovating
feature that lets you bind a value of a prepared query to an
auto-increment table field.

Using just these functions Metabase figures automatically whether native
auto-increment fields or sequences will be used. There is no need to
verify that at runtime and the code will always be database independent.

- Support for primary keys. Primary keys are implicit with tables using
auto-incremented key fields but Metabase also supports compound keys.

- Migration to alter tables and start using auto-increment fields and
primary keys works flawlessly. I have implemented this in the PHP
Classes site that has tens of tables that were migrated with a simple
change in a XML database schema definition.

If before you had>

<table>

   <name>sometable</name>

   <declaration>

    <field> <name>id</name> <type>integer</type> <notnull>1</notnull>
<default>0</default> </field>
    <field> <name>someotherfield</name> <type>text</type> </field>

    <index>
     <name>sometable_id_index</name>
     <field> <name>id</name> </field>
     <unique>1</unique>
    </index>

   </declaration>

</table>

<sequence>
   <name>sometable_id</name>
   <start>1</start>
   <on> <table>file_accesses_queue</table> <field>id</field> </on>
</sequence>


Now you just need this:

<table>

   <name>sometable</name>

   <declaration>

    <field> <name>id</name> <autoincrement>1</autoincrement> </field>
    <field> <name>someotherfield</name> <type>text</type> </field>

   </declaration>

</table>

Migrating from one kind of schema to the other just takes this change.
Metabase will take care of the field changes and the implicit primary
key association.

As for applications code you just need to change something like this:

$db->GetNextSequenceValue("sometable_id", $id);

$db->Query("INSERT INTO sometable (id, someotherfield) VALUES(".$id,",
'some other value')";

to:

$db->GetNextKey("sometable", $key);

$db->Query("INSERT INTO sometable (id, someotherfield) VALUES(".$key,",
'some other value')";

$db->GetInsertedKey("sometable", $id);


- There are new database manager API functions named
CreateDetailedTable and DropDetailedTable. These are used by the schema
manager class to create and drop tables with auto-increment fields and
primary keys.

- The schema manager now performs a safety check when installing or
altering databases with new tables. If it is not possible to create a
table because the current driver does not support some features, nothing
is changed in the database and the schema manager will return an
explanatory error message.

- Schema reverse engineering of database tables with auto-increment
fields or primary keys is now implemented for now for MySQL only.

- The driver test suite has now a new tests named autoincrement and
preparedautoincrement that try to insert a few records in a new table
with an autoincrement field and verifies if it worked correctly either
using direct queries or prepared queries.


For now this new version is available in CVS. You may find instructions
on how to obtain access to the CVS server or a download daily snapshots
from here:

http://www.meta-language.net/download.html

Please test these improvements and let me know if you would like to seem
them also implemented in databases that are not yet supported.

The updated version of the documentation is available here. The tutorial
will be updated  soon.

http://www.meta-language.net/metabase.html


--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

Hello,

A new version of Metastorage was released providing several improvements
in the quality of the generated code, being the most important, the use
of comments explaining the purpose of the generated code, and the use of
native auto-increment fields for generating identifiers for objects
being stored for the first time.

Read the complete news article here:

http://www.meta-language.net/news-2005-09-13-metastorage.html

--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

Hello,

In case you don't know, I have just released a new version of Metabase.

This release includes support for inserting rows in tables omitting the
auto-increment field values and make such field get the next
auto-increment value automatically in DBMS that support it.

The Microsoft SQL server version was enhanced to support native
auto-increment fields, primary keys and support several new types of
schema table alterations.

The Oracle driver has also enhanced to use triggers implicitly to
initialize the values of auto-increment fields when these values are
omitted or set to NULL in INSERT queries.

If you pick the MetaL and Metastorage bundle archives generated from the
CVS snapshots, it already includes the latest Metabase version:

http://www.meta-language.net/download.html#snapshots

My short term plan for Metastorage should address these issues:

- Use auto-increment fields omitting their values as it is faster on
some databases (like MS-SQL that requires INSERT query rewriting).

- BLOB class variable support

- Pattern matching support (LIKE operator) to implement new OQL
operatores like startswith, contains and endswith. This will depend a
Metabase feature to be added that will provide database pattern wildcard
escaping.

- Add code generation options file to let developers customize details
of generation to address better their projects: like PHP 5 optimized vs.
PHP 4 compatible, toggle the comments in the generated code, namespace
prefixes for class names, generate setter and getter functions, etc..

- Add the section of report classes of the Metastorage tutorial

- Support more database drivers with native auto-increment support (you
tell me which you want to use)

- Other important features (you tell me about it).

--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

Hello,

Once in a while I am asked about examples of projects that use
Metastorage. Basically, people want to be convinced or convince their
bosses that using Metastorage is a good thing beneficial for their
developments.

I can give examples of my own projects but that is not as convincing as
it would be if I also presented cases of projects of other people that
also used Metastorage with success.

I know that not everybody can disclose details about the projects on
which they are using Metastorage. Some projects may also not be public
or functional enough to be used.

However, I would still appreciate all of you that are using Metastorage
and can disclose something to about your projects and what Metastorage
provided to benefit your developments.

I would like to put up a page with Metastorage success cases gallery. I
have no problem is linking to the companies that you are working for and
provide your businesses some exposure. So, if you can help me building
this Metastorage cases page, please contact me, privately if you prefer,
so you can let me know what you can disclose. Just follow up in this
list or mail me at mlemos@... .


--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

Hello,

The current version of conv.xslt are parsing xmi generated in the
umbrello 1.4.2?

Using the demo.xmi (from umbrello 1.2 version) the parsed document
works correctly, but not in 1.4.2 -_-

What`s going on?


Tks...

Hello,

on 09/23/2005 09:12 PM Allyson Francisco de Paula Reis said the following:
> Hello,
>
> The current version of conv.xslt are parsing xmi generated in the
> umbrello 1.4.2?
>
> Using the demo.xmi (from umbrello 1.2 version) the parsed document
> works correctly, but not in 1.4.2 -_-
>
> What`s going on?

Can you please sent a test file here, so I can take a look?

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/metal-dev/files/metastorage/xmi2metastorage/test/


Meanwhile. the good news is that Teoni Valois is working of AJAX Web
based interfact to edit Metastorage components with XMI inport support.

--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

It`s done.

Looking the demo.xmi and my example I can see that files have a greate
difference about data size (demo.xmi have 21k and my example 147k).

For now I have a question... Can I take de raw xmi (file without
striping tags by the my own hand) and convert using the conv.xslt?

Tks

--- In metal-dev@yahoogroups.com, Manuel Lemos <mlemos@a...> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> on 09/23/2005 09:12 PM Allyson Francisco de Paula Reis said the
following:
> > Hello,
> >
> > The current version of conv.xslt are parsing xmi generated in the
> > umbrello 1.4.2?
> >
> > Using the demo.xmi (from umbrello 1.2 version) the parsed document
> > works correctly, but not in 1.4.2 -_-
> >
> > What`s going on?
>
> Can you please sent a test file here, so I can take a look?
>
>
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/metal-dev/files/metastorage/xmi2metastorage/test/
>
>
> Meanwhile. the good news is that Teoni Valois is working of AJAX Web
> based interfact to edit Metastorage components with XMI inport support.
>
> --
>
> Regards,
> Manuel Lemos
>
> PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
> http://www.phpclasses.org/
>
> PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
> http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/
>
> Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
> http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

Hello,

on 09/24/2005 07:44 AM Allyson Francisco de Paula Reis said the following:
> Looking the demo.xmi and my example I can see that files have a greate
> difference about data size (demo.xmi have 21k and my example 147k).

That is not relevant.

> For now I have a question... Can I take de raw xmi (file without
> striping tags by the my own hand) and convert using the conv.xslt?

I am not sure what is the problem because I am not a XSL expert, but it
seems that if you change the UML namespace definition it works well.

Just change the root tag xmlns:UML="http://schema.omg.org/spec/UML/1.3"
to xmlns:UML="org.omg/standards/UML" .

--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

On Fri, 2005-09-23 at 21:47 -0300, Manuel Lemos wrote:
> Hello,
>
> on 09/23/2005 09:12 PM Allyson Francisco de Paula Reis said the
> following:
> > Hello,
> >
> > The current version of conv.xslt are parsing xmi generated in the
> > umbrello 1.4.2?
> >
> > Using the demo.xmi (from umbrello 1.2 version) the parsed document
> > works correctly, but not in 1.4.2 -_-
> >
> > What`s going on?
>
> Can you please sent a test file here, so I can take a look?
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/metal-
> dev/files/metastorage/xmi2metastorage/test/
>
>
> Meanwhile. the good news is that Teoni Valois is working of AJAX Web
> based interfact to edit Metastorage components with XMI inport
> support.


Timing.  Just as I'm thinking about looking at this again, the first
person to mail anything about it!

Manuel, has anything happened to that script since I last touched it a
year ago?

Can you point me to Teoni's work?  I'd be interested in having a look.


Allyson: The problem is that certain tags changed their name between
umbrello versions; I intended to auto-detect which was in use but never
got back to it.  The script, as I left it, was very much a "first pass &
proof of concept", not a finished product.


>
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
--
Peter Howard
pjh@...
Jabber Id: pjhacnau@...
AIM Id: pjhacnau



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hello,

on 09/24/2005 09:05 PM Peter Howard said the following:
> Timing.  Just as I'm thinking about looking at this again, the first
> person to mail anything about it!

Great.


> Manuel, has anything happened to that script since I last touched it a
> year ago?

No, that I know.



> Can you point me to Teoni's work?  I'd be interested in having a look.

He is testing some AJAX classes to build a Web interface.

He has already published a package for generating PHP Classes from UML
definitions in XMI. He has made it generate Metastorage components but
it is a PHP GTK program. I will see if publishes the Metastorage
version. Meanwhile the PHP Classes version is available here:

http://www.phpclasses.org/uml2classes


> Allyson: The problem is that certain tags changed their name between
> umbrello versions; I intended to auto-detect which was in use but never
> got back to it.  The script, as I left it, was very much a "first pass &
> proof of concept", not a finished product.

As you may have noticed in my other message, changing the UML namespace
declaration solved the problem. I just don't understand why.


--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

Hello,

I would like to invite all members of this group to access #metastorage
channel in irc.freenode.org network.

The objective is increase the information exchange around members in
this project.

Regards,

Allyson de Paula

>     Hello,
>
>  on 09/24/2005 09:05 PM Peter Howard said the following:
>  > Timing.  Just as I'm thinking about looking at this again, the first
>  > person to mail anything about it!
>
>  Great.
>
>
>  > Manuel, has anything happened to that script since I last touched it a
>  > year ago?
>
>  No, that I know.
>
>
>
>  > Can you point me to Teoni's work?  I'd be interested in having a look.
>
>  He is testing some AJAX classes to build a Web interface.
>
>  He has already published a package for generating PHP Classes from UML
>  definitions in XMI. He has made it generate Metastorage components but
>  it is a PHP GTK program. I will see if publishes the Metastorage
>  version. Meanwhile the PHP Classes version is available here:
>
>  http://www.phpclasses.org/uml2classes
>
>
>  > Allyson: The problem is that certain tags changed their name between
>  > umbrello versions; I intended to auto-detect which was in use but never
>  > got back to it.  The script, as I left it, was very much a "first
> pass &
>  > proof of concept", not a finished product.
>
>  As you may have noticed in my other message, changing the UML namespace
>  declaration solved the problem. I just don't understand why.
>

My interpretation is that even though the namespaces have the same "name",
if their definition files are different they aren't the same namespace.  I
ran xsltproc with the -v option and it was stating that it couldn't find a
template for all the UML:* entities with the two different.

PJH

Hello,

A new release of Metastorage is out!

- This release adds support for generating functions to manage transactions.

- Metastorage now lets the developer integrate handwritten code
customizations in PHP with the code of the classes generated by
Metastorage. The integration is done without loosing the customizations
when the classes are regenerated.

- It is also possible to retrieve object identifiers of reference
variables (1-many relationships) of classes of external components.

- Several bugs were fixed to handle uncommon situations.


Please read the full release news article here:

http://www.meta-language.net/news-2005-11-02-metastorage.html


--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

Hello,

I have been presenting Metastorage in several places in Brazil lately.
The Metastorage presentation has been improved. Now there is also a
tutorial presentation.

For now the presentation materials are only available in Portuguese.
Maybe I will prepare english versions of these materials if I am invited
to give the presentations to non-Portuguese speaking users.

Anyway, the updated presentation files are available here:

http://www.meta-language.net/presentations.html

--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

PHP Reviews - Reviews of PHP books and other products
http://www.phpclasses.org/reviews/

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

Hello,

This is just a notice to let you know that the Metabase SQLite driver
was updated to support native auto-increment fields and primary keys
thanks to a contribution of John Walton. So, now you can use it with
Metastorage generated code.

This driver works with the SQLite extension that comes with PHP 5 but
also works with PHP 4 if you download the extension separately from the
PECL repository.

Just download the version from MetaL CVS repository and you are ready to
use this update.

So far Metastorage generated code can work with MySQL, PostgreSQL,
Oracle, Microsoft SQL server and SQLite.

I would like to take this opportunity to let you know that if you want
to work with Metastorage generated code using a database that is not yet
supported but you are willing to work on whatever is necessary to write
or update the respective Metabase driver, just let me know and I will
guide you through the necessary steps.


--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.metastorage.net/

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

Hello,

I have just finished implementing the support for BLOBs as class
variables.

These types are stored by variables of type largedata. By default
largedata variables are binary (BLOB) but they may also be of text (CLOB).

Two new types of functions were introduced to lazy load and store
largedata variables. They can be stored or retrieved from string
parameters or from files. This simplifies greatly the access to these
types of database fields and usually they require the use of prepared
queries.

I will be writing the necessary documentation this weekend. It will be
posted on the site soon. Meanwhile the latest changes are available
from the CVS repository:

http://www.meta-language.net/download.html#cvs

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

Hello,

A new version of Metastorage was released featuring support for large
data variables, also known as BLOBs - Binary Large OBjects, and
providing means to upgrade database schemas without destroying
previously stored objects when classes, variables or collections are
renamed.

Here is the full new article:

http://www.meta-language.net/news-2005-12-21-metastorage.html

--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.metastorage.net/

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

Hello,

In order to get greater visibility to the Metastorage project, it would
be good if all of you that appreciate it could rate it in Hotscripts and
Freshmeat. That would help getting greater visibility to the project and
so attract more users to contribute at least to help testing Metastorage
or suggest new features.

The Hotscripts rate box may be found here:

http://www.meta-language.net/metastorage.html

Or here:

http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/55432.html

Metastorage rating page in Freshmeat may be found here:

http://freshmeat.net/rate/33243/

--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.metastorage.net/

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

After more than a year, I've finally done some more playing on this.  I
thought I'd put it up in it's current form so that you can have a look.
Files have been updated at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/metal-
dev/files/metastorage/xmi2metastorage/

I'm working against Umbrello 1.4.1

The two main things to note are:
      1. Since I started, Umbrello has removed the name I used for the
         component name in the xmi.  As a result, the xsltproc invocation
         now has to look like: "xsltproc --stringparam project {name}
         conv.xslt {xmi file} > {xml file}
      2. The script now expects the classes it will deal with to be in a
         package named "Persistent".  If you compare test/singleTest.xmi
         to test/singleTest2.xmi you'll see the change needed.

Also, class member functions require a stereotype to indicate what type
of function it should be for metastorage purposes.

The resultant output still can't be processed by metastorage without
hand-editing of the xml output, but it is getting much closer.

--
Peter Howard
pjh@...
Jabber Id: pjhacnau@...
AIM Id: pjhacnau



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hello,

on 12/22/2005 10:40 PM Peter Howard said the following:
> After more than a year, I've finally done some more playing on this.  I
> thought I'd put it up in it's current form so that you can have a look.
> Files have been updated at
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/metal-
> dev/files/metastorage/xmi2metastorage/
>
> I'm working against Umbrello 1.4.1
>
> The two main things to note are:
>      1. Since I started, Umbrello has removed the name I used for the
>         component name in the xmi.  As a result, the xsltproc invocation
>         now has to look like: "xsltproc --stringparam project {name}
>         conv.xslt {xmi file} > {xml file}
>      2. The script now expects the classes it will deal with to be in a
>         package named "Persistent".  If you compare test/singleTest.xmi
>         to test/singleTest2.xmi you'll see the change needed.
>
> Also, class member functions require a stereotype to indicate what type
> of function it should be for metastorage purposes.
>
> The resultant output still can't be processed by metastorage without
> hand-editing of the xml output, but it is getting much closer.


Sounds great. I am going to create a small example project of a news
system with a Web interface to demonstrate how to user Metastorage
generated code.

I already have UML diagrams done with Umbrello. So, I will be able to
test your XSLT soon.


--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.metastorage.net/

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

On Fri, 2005-12-23 at 21:46 -0200, Manuel Lemos wrote:
> Hello,
>
> on 12/22/2005 10:40 PM Peter Howard said the following:
> > After more than a year, I've finally done some more playing on this.
> I
> > thought I'd put it up in it's current form so that you can have a
> look.
> > Files have been updated at
> >
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/metal-
> > dev/files/metastorage/xmi2metastorage/
> >
> > I'm working against Umbrello 1.4.1
> >
> > The two main things to note are:
> >      1. Since I started, Umbrello has removed the name I used for
> the
> >         component name in the xmi.  As a result, the xsltproc
> invocation
> >         now has to look like: "xsltproc --stringparam project {name}
> >         conv.xslt {xmi file} > {xml file}
> >      2. The script now expects the classes it will deal with to be
> in a
> >         package named "Persistent".  If you compare
> test/singleTest.xmi
> >         to test/singleTest2.xmi you'll see the change needed.
> >
> > Also, class member functions require a stereotype to indicate what
> type
> > of function it should be for metastorage purposes.
> >
> > The resultant output still can't be processed by metastorage without
> > hand-editing of the xml output, but it is getting much closer.
>
>
> Sounds great. I am going to create a small example project of a news
> system with a Web interface to demonstrate how to user Metastorage
> generated code.
>
> I already have UML diagrams done with Umbrello. So, I will be able to
> test your XSLT soon.
>

Oh, goody.  This should provide extra motivation for me to get the
conversion to the point that metastorage processes it without errors.

There is one or two problems I still have with the XML metastorage
accepts, but they are not an immediate issue; they are only of issue
once I try to do comparisons on re-generation.


--
Peter Howard
pjh@...
Jabber Id: pjhacnau@...
AIM Id: pjhacnau



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

(See extra comment inline below)

On Sat, 2005-12-24 at 12:54 +1100, Peter Howard wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-12-23 at 21:46 -0200, Manuel Lemos wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > on 12/22/2005 10:40 PM Peter Howard said the following:
> > > After more than a year, I've finally done some more playing on
> this.
> > I
> > > thought I'd put it up in it's current form so that you can have a
> > look.
> > > Files have been updated at
> > >
> > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/metal-
> > > dev/files/metastorage/xmi2metastorage/
> > >
> > > I'm working against Umbrello 1.4.1
> > >
> > > The two main things to note are:
> > >      1. Since I started, Umbrello has removed the name I used for
> > the
> > >         component name in the xmi.  As a result, the xsltproc
> > invocation
> > >         now has to look like: "xsltproc --stringparam project
> {name}
> > >         conv.xslt {xmi file} > {xml file}
> > >      2. The script now expects the classes it will deal with to be
> > in a
> > >         package named "Persistent".  If you compare
> > test/singleTest.xmi
> > >         to test/singleTest2.xmi you'll see the change needed.
> > >
> > > Also, class member functions require a stereotype to indicate what
> > type
> > > of function it should be for metastorage purposes.
> > >
> > > The resultant output still can't be processed by metastorage
> without
> > > hand-editing of the xml output, but it is getting much closer.
> >
> >
> > Sounds great. I am going to create a small example project of a
> news
> > system with a Web interface to demonstrate how to user Metastorage
> > generated code.
> >
> > I already have UML diagrams done with Umbrello. So, I will be able
> to
> > test your XSLT soon.
> >
>
> Oh, goody.  This should provide extra motivation for me to get the
> conversion to the point that metastorage processes it without errors.
>

In particular, I'm having trouble working out how to translate
functions.  The reality of metastorage seems a bit behind the
documentation (e.g. "custom" functions not being supported yet).  If you
could provide me with an umbrello model containing a class which has a
function in it of each possible type (with the type being the
stereotype) along with a "hand-translation" of what you'd expect in the
resultant metastorage XML, it would make things much easier for me.

Also on functions, I'm considering having the xslt auto-add a
setreference and getreference function (once I understand the form
properly) for each collection a class has (either explicit UML attribute
or ULM relation).  Thoughts on that?

> There is one or two problems I still have with the XML metastorage
> accepts, but they are not an immediate issue; they are only of issue
> once I try to do comparisons on re-generation.
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
--
Peter Howard
pjh@...
Jabber Id: pjhacnau@...
AIM Id: pjhacnau



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]