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Last modified by John Huss on 2010/07/23 14:35
From version 4.1
edited by David Holt
on 2008/05/12 19:07
Change comment: There is no comment for this version
To version 5.1
edited by John Huss
on 2010/07/23 14:32
Change comment: There is no comment for this version

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1 -XWiki.dholt
1 +XWiki.johnthuss
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1 -FrontBase is now available for free. Please see the FrontBase website [[http://www.frontbase.com]] for details.
1 +FrontBase is now available for **free**. Please see the FrontBase website [[http://www.frontbase.com]] for details.
2 2  
3 3  ----
4 4  
5 +**A first experience with FrontBase, WO 5.3.1 and MacOSX 10.4.6**
6 +
7 +Make sure you have the FrontBase jdbc connector accessible from your WebObjects applications. I placed mine in /Library/Java/Extensions/
8 +Make sure that the FrontBasePlugIn.framework is located in /Library/Java/Frameworks
9 +Make sure that you have added the framework to your project or you will not be able to establish a connection to your database, even though you'll be able to see your database from EOModeler.
10 +If you haven't yet assigned a User/Password combination to your database, you still must include User information in order for the connection to be established. Use system to get started. The URL for basic connection is: jdbc:FrontBase:~/~/localhost/my_database_name
11 +
12 +The documentation available at the Frontbase site is very complete. The only gotcha was that I was left with the impression the framework was only necessary for WebObjects 4.5 and below. This is not the case, you have to install and include it for WO 5 projects too.
13 +
14 +----
15 +
5 5  **Useful SQL commands in FrontBase**
6 6  
7 7  {{code value="sql"}}
... ... @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
10 10  write all output(dir='/path/to/export/dir', type = 'FrontBase', content=true);
11 11  
12 12  // creates a database from the exported files that results from the previous command
13 -SCRIPT <path-to-export-directory>/schema.sql;
24 +SCRIPT <path-to-export-directory>/schema.sql;
14 14  
15 15  // to rename a table
16 16  alter table name Item to ItemArchive;
... ... @@ -17,19 +17,211 @@
17 17  
18 18  {{/code}}
19 19  
31 +{{color value="#000000"}}
20 20  If you don't use type='FrontBase', you end up losing precision on your timestamp columns, which can really suck.
33 +{{/color}}
21 21  
22 22  ----
23 23  
24 -A first experience with FrontBase, WO 5.3.1 and MacOSX 10.4.6
37 +**Delimited Export From FrontBase**
25 25  
26 -Make sure you have the FrontBase jdbc connector accessible from your WebObjects applications. I placed mine in /Library/Java/Extensions/
27 -Make sure that the FrontBasePlugIn.framework is located in /Library/Java/Frameworks
28 -Make sure that you have added the framework to your project or you will not be able to establish a connection to your database, even though you'll be able to see your database from EOModeler.
29 -If you haven't yet assigned a User/Password combination to your database, you still must include User information in order for the connection to be established. Use system to get started. The URL for basic connection is: jdbc:FrontBase:~/~/localhost/my_database_name
39 +{{color value="#000000"}}
40 +Out of the box FrontBase doesn't provide a pure delimited file export. &nbsp;But it comes close, and with a little effort, you can have a delimited file export that you can import into a different database. This script will create a tab delimited backup of your database.
41 +{{/color}}
30 30  
31 -The documentation available at the Frontbase site is very complete. The only gotcha was that I was left with the impression the framework was only necessary for WebObjects 4.5 and below. This is not the case, you have to install and include it for WO 5 projects too.
43 +{{code}}
32 32  
45 +#! /bin/bash
46 +
47 +# The name of the database to backup must be the first argument to the script
48 +# The backup output directory (ABSOLUTE PATH!) must be the second parameter
49 +
50 +if [ "$#" -lt "2" ]; then
51 + echo "Usage:"
52 + echo "$0 <DATABASE_NAME> <BACKUP_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY_ABOLUTE_PATH>"
53 + exit 1
54 +fi
55 +
56 +mkdir -p "$2"
57 +
58 +echo "CONNECT TO $1 USER _system;" > backup_$1.sql
59 +echo "WRITE ALL OUTPUT(DIR='$2', CSEP='\t', RSEP='\n', CONTENT=TRUE);" >> backup_$1.sql
60 +echo "DISCONNECT CURRENT;" >> backup_$1.sql
61 +
62 +# run the backup
63 +/Library/FrontBase/bin/sql92 < backup_$1.sql
64 +
65 +rm backup_$1.sql
66 +
67 +# convert files to plain delimited format
68 +for FILE in `ls $2/*_*`; do
69 + #echo "$FILE"
70 +
71 + # read table name (first line)
72 + TABLE=`head -n 1 "$FILE"`
73 + TABLE=`echo $TABLE | sed 's/_SYSTEM.//g' `
74 + echo $TABLE
75 +
76 + if [[ $TABLE == BLACK_AND_WHITE_LIST* ]]; then
77 + rm -f "$FILE"
78 + continue
79 + fi
80 +
81 + if [[ $TABLE == INFORMATION_SCHEMA* ]]; then
82 + rm -f "$FILE"
83 + continue
84 + fi
85 +
86 + # read number of columns (second line)
87 + NUMCOLUMNS=`head -n 2 "$FILE" | tail -n 1`
88 +
89 +
90 + COLUMNS=""
91 +
92 + # read list of columns and assemble into one line (csv)
93 + for ((i=1; i <= $NUMCOLUMNS; i++)); do
94 + LINENUM=$((i + 2))
95 + LINE=`head -n $LINENUM "$FILE" | tail -n 1`
96 + COLUMN=`echo $LINE | cut -d\" -f 2`
97 + COLUMNS="${COLUMNS},${COLUMN}"
98 + done
99 +
100 + # remove leading comma from column list
101 + COLUMNS=`sed 's/^.//' <<<$COLUMNS`
102 + # replace commas with tabs in the header
103 + COLUMNS=`sed 's/,/ /g' <<<$COLUMNS`
104 +
105 + OUTFILE="$2/${TABLE}.tab"
106 +
107 + # append CSV header with column names to file
108 + echo "$COLUMNS" > "$OUTFILE"
109 +
110 + # delete column list from file and escape double quotes.
111 + # if you are manually escaping text, then remove the part: | sed 's/"/""/g'
112 + DELETELINES=$(($NUMCOLUMNS + 2))
113 + sed "1,${DELETELINES}d" $FILE | sed 's/"/""/g' >> "$OUTFILE"
114 +
115 + rm -f "$FILE"
116 +done
117 +
118 +echo ""
119 +echo "The backup file has been written to $2.tgz"
120 +echo ""
121 +
122 +{{/code}}
123 +
124 +There are a few caveats with this backup:
125 +
126 +1. FrontBase's delimited export doesn't do any quoting or escaping as far as I know. The script above handles embedded quotes, but that is all. So if your data has embedded line breaks, tabs, or double-quotes, then you will need to manually deal with that. The easiest way is to just edit the data in the DB before backing up. First run a query to escape double quotes so that " becomes "". Then run a query to surround the data with double quotes. These changes will make the export file valid but won't alter the data once it's imported.
127 +1. FrontBase's export padding CHAR (fixed-length) fields with zero bytes (0x0) which are not allowed by Postgres' import. You can alter your schema to use VARCHAR instead before exporting, or just strip the zero bytes if you know that if won't mess up any other data you have. You can strip them after exporting by running this command:
128 +
129 +{{code}}
130 +
131 +tr -d '\0' < MyTable.tab > MyTableStripped.tab
132 +mv MyTableStripped.tab MyTable.tab
133 +
134 +{{/code}}
135 +
136 +1. I don't know if this works with binary data.
137 +1. There may be issues with character encoding.
138 +1. There may be issues with timestamp precision. Is type='FrontBase' needed?
139 +
140 +----
141 +
142 +**Migration to PostreSQL**
143 +
144 +Using the delimited export above, you can migrate a FrontBase database to PostgreSQL. This is an import script that does that:
145 +
146 +{{code}}
147 +
148 +#! /bin/bash
149 +
150 +# NOTE: you will be prompted for your DB password, perhaps interrupting a very long process
151 +# that would otherwise be automated; you can avoid this by setting the auth method to trust
152 +# in postgresql.conf or creating a .pgpass file in your home folder.
153 +
154 +# The database must exist already. If it doesn't, create it by running: createdb "MyDatabase"
155 +
156 +# This will only import the data, not the schema. the schema must already be defined.
157 +# However, for better speed you may want to wait to define the indexes, foreign keys,
158 +# and constraints until after the import is complete.
159 +
160 +# If an error occurs in the import phase all changes will be rolled back; the DB will have
161 +# no data and you can fiddle with things and try again.
162 +
163 +if [ $# -lt "2" ]; then
164 + echo "Usage: $0 <database_name> <path_to_directory_with_tab_files>"
165 + exit
166 +fi
167 +
168 +DBNAME="$1"
169 +OUTPUTDIR="$2"
170 +
171 +cd "$OUTPUTDIR"
172 +
173 +function createScripts {
174 +
175 + rm -f import.txt
176 + rm -f sequences.txt
177 + rm -f vacuum.txt
178 + rm -f analyze.txt
179 +
180 + echo "SET CONSTRAINTS ALL DEFERRED;" >> import.txt
181 + echo "" >> import.txt
182 +
183 + for FILE in `ls *.tab`; do
184 + TABLE=`sed 's/.tab$//' <<<$FILE `
185 +
186 + if [[ $TABLE == INFORMATION_SCHEMA* ]]; then
187 + continue
188 + fi
189 +
190 + echo "Preparing sql for $TABLE"
191 +
192 + COLUMNS=`head -n 1 $FILE`
193 + # replace spaces or tabs with commas in the header
194 + COLUMNS=`sed 's/[ ]/,/g' <<<$COLUMNS`
195 +
196 + echo "DELETE FROM ${TABLE};" >> import.txt
197 + echo "COPY ${TABLE}(${COLUMNS}) FROM '${OUTPUTDIR}/${FILE}' WITH DELIMITER E'\t' CSV HEADER;" >> import.txt
198 + echo "" >> import.txt
199 +
200 + # this assumes your primary keys are named ${TABLE}PK - the table name followed by "pk".
201 + # if not, modify this, or reset the sequences manually later.
202 + echo "SELECT SETVAL('${TABLE}_seq', (SELECT MAX(${TABLE}PK) FROM ${TABLE}));" >> sequences.txt
203 + echo "" >> sequences.txt
204 +
205 + echo "VACUUM ${TABLE};" >> vacuum.txt
206 + echo "ANALYZE ${TABLE};" >> analyze.txt
207 + done
208 +}
209 +
210 +createScripts
211 +
212 +/Library/PostgreSQL8/bin/psql --set ON_ERROR_STOP=on -a --user postgres --dbname ${DBNAME} --single-transaction --file "${OUTPUTDIR}/import.txt"
213 +if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
214 + exit
215 +fi
216 +
217 +/Library/PostgreSQL8/bin/psql --set ON_ERROR_STOP=on -a --user postgres --dbname ${DBNAME} --file "${OUTPUTDIR}/vacuum.txt"
218 +if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
219 + exit
220 +fi
221 +
222 +/Library/PostgreSQL8/bin/psql --set ON_ERROR_STOP=on -a --user postgres --dbname ${DBNAME} --file "${OUTPUTDIR}/analyze.txt"
223 +if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
224 + exit
225 +fi
226 +
227 +/Library/PostgreSQL8/bin/psql --set ON_ERROR_STOP=off -a --user postgres --dbname ${DBNAME} --file "${OUTPUTDIR}/sequences.txt"
228 +
229 +echo "Done."
230 +echo "Now add indexes, foreign keys, and constraints if you haven't yet."
231 +
232 +{{/code}}
233 +
234 +----
235 +
33 33  **Migration from MySQL**
34 34  
35 35  In most cases the datatypes are exactly the same. Here are the FrontBase equivalents for common datatypes in MySQL that are different: