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Arun Gupta's Blog

Arun Gupta Arun Gupta is a Technology Evangelist for Web Services and Web 2.0 Apps at Sun. He was the spec lead for APIs in the Java platform, committer in multiple Open Source projects, participated in standard bodies and contributed to Java EE and SE releases.



TOTD #48: Converting a JSF 1.2 application to JSF 2.0 - Facelets and Ajax

Posted by arungupta on October 15, 2008 at 05:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)


TOTD #47 showed how to deploy a JSF 1.2 application (using Facelets and Ajax/JSF Extensions) on Mojarra 2.0-enabled GlassFish.  In this blog we'll use new features added in JSF 2.0 to simplify our application:
Let's get started!
  • Re-create the app as defined in TOTD #47. This app is built using JSF 1.2 core components and Facelets. It uses JSF Extensions for adding Ajax capabilities. Lets change this app to use newer features of JSF 2.0.
  • Edit "faces-config.xml" and change the value of faces-config/@version from "1.2" to "2.0".
  • Remove the following fragment from "faces-config.xml":

        <application>
            <view-handler>com.sun.facelets.FaceletViewHandler</view-handler>
        </application>

    This fragment is no longer required because Facelets is the default view technology in JSF 2.0. But it's important to remember that JSF 2.0 Facelets is disabled by default if "WEB-INF/faces-config.xml" is versioned at 1.2 or older.
  • Remove the following code fragment from "web.xml":

            <init-param>
              <param-name>javax.faces.LIFECYCLE_ID</param-name>
              <param-value>com.sun.faces.lifecycle.PARTIAL</param-value>
            </init-param>

    This is only required if JSF Extensions APIs are used.
  • Edit "welcome.xhtml" and replace code with:

    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
    <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
          xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
          xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html">
        <ui:composition>
            <h:head>
                <h1><h:outputText value="What city do you like ?" /></h1>
            </h:head>
           
            <h:body>
                <h:form prependId="false">
                    <h:panelGrid columns="2">
                        <h:outputText value="CityName:"/>
                        <h:inputText value="#{cities.cityName}"
                                     title="CityName"
                                     id="cityName"
                                     required="true"
                                     onkeyup="javax.faces.Ajax.ajaxRequest(this, event, { execute: 'cityName', render: 'city_choices'});"/>
                        <h:outputText value="CountryName:"/>
                        <h:inputText value="#{cities.countryName}" title="CountryName" id="countryName" required="true"/>
                    </h:panelGrid>
                   
                    <h:commandButton action="#{dbUtil.saveCity}" value="submit"/>
                    <br/><br/>
                    <h:outputText id="city_choices" value="#{dbUtil.cityChoices}"></h:outputText>
                   
                    <br/><br/>
                    <h:message for="cityName" showSummary="true" showDetail="false" style="color: red"/><br/>
                    <h:message for="countryName" showSummary="true" showDetail="false" style="color: red"/>
                </h:form>
            </h:body>
            <h:outputScript name="ajax.js" library="javax.faces" target="header"/>
        </ui:composition>
       
    </html>

    The differences are highlighted in bold and explained below:
    • "template.xhtml" is no longer required because standard tags are used to identify "head" and "body".
    • <h:head> and <h:body> are new tags defined in JSF 2.0. These tags define where the nested resources need to be rendered.
    • <h:outputScript> is a new tag defined in JSF 2.0 and allows an external JavaScript file to be referenced. In this case, it is referencing "ajax.js" script and is rendered in "head". The script file itself is bundled in "jsf-api.jar" in "META-INF/resources/javax.faces" directory. It adds Ajax functionality to the application.
    • "javax.faces.Ajax.ajaxRequest" function is defined in the JavaScript file "ajax.js". This particular function invocation ensures that "city_choices" is rendered when execute portion of the request lifecycle is executed for "cityName" field. The complete documentation is available in "ajax.js". Read more details about what happens in the background here.

    Notice how the Facelet is so simplified.
  • Refactor "result.xhtml" such that the code looks like as shown below:



    The changes are explained in the previous step, basically a clean Facelet using standard <h:head> and <h:body> tags and everything else remains as is.
And that's it, just hit "Undeploy and Deploy" in NetBeans IDE and your application should now get deployed on Mojarra 2.0-enabled GlassFish. To reiterate, the main things highlighted in this blog are:
  • Facelets are integrated in Mojarra 2.0.
  • New tags for resource re-location allow a simpler and cleaner facelet embedded in a JSF application.
  • JavaScript APIs provide a clean way to expose Ajax functionality in JSF app.
And all of these features are defined in the JSF 2.0 specification. So if you are using Mojarra then be assured that you are developing a standards compliant user interface.

Have you tried your JSF 1.2 app on Mojarra 2.0 ? Drop a comment on this blog if you have.
File JSF related bugs here using "2.0.0 EDR1" version and ask your questions on webtier@glassfish.dev.java.net.

Please leave suggestions on other TOTD (Tip Of The Day) that you'd like to see. An archive of all the tips is available here.

Technorati: totd javaserverfaces glassfish mojarra netbeans

TOTD #47: Getting Started with Mojarra 2.0 nightly on GlassFish v2

Posted by arungupta on October 14, 2008 at 05:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)


Java Server Faces 2.0 specification (JSR 314, EDR2) and implementation (soon to be EDR2) are brewing. This blog shows how to get started with Mojarra - Sun's implementation of JSF.

GlassFish v2 comes bundled with Mojarra 1.2_04 which allows you to deploy a JSF 1.2 application. This blog explains how you can update GlassFish v2 to use Mojarra 2.0 nightly. And then it deploys a simple JSF 1.2-based application on this updated GlassFish instance, there by showing that your existing JSF 1.2 apps will continue to work with Mojarra 2.0-enabled GlassFish. This is an important step because it ensures no regression, unless it was a compatibility fix :)
  1. Re-create a simple JSF 1.2 application as described in TOTD #42, TOTD #45 and TOTD #46. This application allows to create a list of cities and store them in a backend database. It uses JSF Extensions to show suggestions, using Ajax, based upon the cities already entered and also uses Facelets as the view technology. Alternatively you can use any pre-existing JSF 1.2 application.
  2. Download Mojarra 2.0 latest nightly.
  3. Follow Release Notes to install the binary, the steps are summarized here for convenience (GlassFish installed in GF_HOME):
    1. Backup "GF_HOME/lib/jsf-impl.jar".
    2. Copy the new "jsf-api" and "jsf-impl" JARs from the unzipped Mojarra distribution to "GF_HOME/lib".
    3. Edit "GF_HOME/domains/<domain-name>/config/domain.xml" and add (or update the existing "classpath-prefix") 'classpath-prefix="${com.sun.aas.installRoot}/lib/jsf-api.jar" in the java-config element.
    4. Restart your server.
  4. Deploy the application on Mojarra 2.0-enabled GlassFish, that's it!
The application is accessible at "http://localhost:8080/Cities/faces/welcome.xhtml". Some of the screen captures are shown below.

If only "S" is entered in the city name, then the following output is shown:



Now with "San" ...



And another one with "De" ...



With JSF 2.0, Ajax capabilities and Facelets are now part of the specification and have already been integrated in Mojarra. A follow up blog entry will show how to use that functionality.

The downloaded Mojarra bundle has some samples (in "samples" folder) to get you started, have a look at them as well!

File JSF related bugs here using "2.0.0 EDR1" version and ask your questions on webtier@glassfish.dev.java.net.

Please leave suggestions on other TOTD (Tip Of The Day) that you'd like to see. A complete archive of all tips is available here.

Technorati: totd javaserverfaces glassfish mojarra netbeans

FREE Sun Student Technology Camp - Oct 24, 2008

Posted by arungupta on October 13, 2008 at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Sun Student Technology Camp is an effort to educate students about what is going on in the world of technology. If you are a student, from middle school on up through university-level, then this is for you! There are presentations, demos, hands-on activities on the latest and most innovative technology from resident technology geeks.

The topic for upcoming camp is Open Source. Find out how Open Source will expand your opportunity, increase flexibility, and foster innovation for their future. There will also be a sneak peek on cool technology that has been brewing in SunLabs.

Did I mention these events are FREE ? :)

Hurry- seating is limited! Register today!

Here are the key details:
Date Friday, October 24th
Location Menlo Park (room location given upon sign-up)
Time 4:00pm – 6:00pm PST (but please try to arrive at 3:30pm)
Topic Open Source Software (Zembly.com, OpenSolaris, and Wonderland)

Technorati: sun students technologycamp opensource

LOTD #10: Running GlassFish on Joyent Accelerator

Posted by arungupta on October 10, 2008 at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Joyent provides a cloud computing environment for all your needs.  

Beyond their typical reasons (scale on demand, pay for what you use, PHP/Rails/Python/Java pre-installed and ready to go, billions of page views and others), now there is another reason to use their cloud.

The instructions to configure GlassFish on Joyent cloud are really clean and simple. Check them out here!

Do you know that Rails applications can be deployed (without any packaging) on GlassFish v3 ? Check out more details here.

All previous entries in this series are archived at LOTD.

Technorati: lotd joyent glassfish

Sun Tech Days 2008, Sao Paolo - Day 1

Posted by arungupta on September 30, 2008 at 06:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Sun Tech Days kick started yesterday in the beautiful city of Sao Paolo, Brazil. Over 1000 attendees, completely charged, willing to discuss their issues, amazing amount of energy and all there to learn about different Sun technologies - just a superb recipe to succeed and outpace everybody else in the world!

The GlassFish session was packed with 400 attendees and there were attendees all over the floor :) The slides are available here. The demos showed during the talk are listed as blog URLs in the slides.

Drop a comment if you attended the talk, are currently using GlassFish for development or production or would like to know more about it.





The winners of Open Source Community Awards (sponsored by Sun) were announced at the keynote. And I'm very excited to announce the two GlassFish Award Program (GAP) winners were present to receive in person. Congratulations to all the winners, very well deserved!

Reginaldo Russinholi won an award for "Translation of Hudson project to Brazilian Portuguese". More details can be found in the submission.



And Claudio Miranda won an award for "Provide CLI/GUI support to add/modify/remove certificates to JKS". More details can be found at in the submission and bug #4524.



And then all the winners together:



And here are some pictures from the evening reception:

The evening concluded with a wonderful dinner at Praca Sao Lourenco (Vila Olimpia) with Bruno, Claudio and Mauricio:

It is a great restaurant with wilderness ambience, and as always, great hospitality. If you are in the city of Sao Paolo, this is another great place to go!

And the evolving (2 more days remaining) album at:



Technorati: conf suntechdays brazil glassfish saopaolo

GlassFish @ ES JUG, Brazil

Posted by arungupta on September 28, 2008 at 07:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)


SUCESU-ES organized ES JUG (Espirito Santo, Brazil) meeting yesterday and I presented on GlassFish. The slides are available here.

There were approx 100 attendees and I was pleasantly surprised to see almost half the audience had heard of GlassFish.

The complete agenda is published here and there were other speakers from Sun as well.

I did not get much time to talk to the audience afterwards because there were back-to-back sessions scheduled. But please feel free to drop a comment on this blog if you attended the talk and have any question/comment.

And they gave a great gift basked (loaded with Garoto chocolates), check out the picture of gift basket:



Thanks a lot!!

Check out some pictures:





The complete album is available here:



Technorati: conf jug esjug vitoria brazil espiritosanto glassfish

LOTD #9: Advantages of JRuby over MRI

Posted by arungupta on September 27, 2008 at 02:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Andreas blogged about why he likes JRuby even though he dislikes Java.

JRuby is "It's just Ruby" with more than 50,000 tests to ensure MRI compliance. The blog highlights that there is no need to know Java, at all, to run JRuby. Here are some advantages that are described in the blog:
  1. JVM runtime optimization
  2. Efficient memory usage
  3. Native threads to spread work on multiple cores
  4. Great garbage collection to make memory usage more efficient
  5. JIT and AOT compilation
  6. Inegration with Java libraries
  7. Running Rails applications on existing Java application servers
  8. Documentation and specs
Read more details here.

Do you know Rails applications can be deployed (without any packaging) on GlassFish v3 ? Check out more details here.

Technorati: lotd jruby ruby rubyonrails glassfish

GlassFish @ DF JUG in Taguatinga

Posted by arungupta on September 25, 2008 at 05:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)


Mauricio, Doris, Simon and I visited DFJUG @ Taguatinga yesterday (make sure to pronounce it correctly, otherwise you'll be corrected again & again, as I was :). 200 attendees, mostly students, stayed all along the 4 hourof  presentations. The projector stopped recognizing any laptop after first two presos. Fortunately Simon had a backup projector but we lost time in debugging but at least all of us could speak!

On the way to JUG venue, Daniel and I talked more about how he is contributing towards social responsibility in the community. A particular one that touched me deeply is where JUG attendees are recommended to bring milk powder for needy children, such a noble thought! There were 150 boxes already donated for this JUG and more were expected at the actual venue. It's not difficult to find 100 volunteers (of the total 33,000 members) to coordinate this effort at each DFJUG venue, truly amazing. 

Another excellent step in that direction is where talented kids (between age 16-21) who cannot afford education are trained in Java to succeed in life. You can find more details at www.politecsolidaria.com.br about his efforts. Check out the picture of "cloud" at Politec's office ;-)



Back to the JUG, I presented on "GlassFish: The Best Open Source Application Server" and the slides are available here.

Drop a comment on the blog if you attended the talk. The demos shown during the talk can be easily reproduced as explained here and here.

I also had a good interaction with faculty in Facitec (JUG venue) and they are already planning to use GlassFish/NetBeans for their upcoming curriculum courses. spotlight.dev.java.net/start provides a comprehensive list of resources (tutorials, course material, hands-on-lab, videos, etc) if you are interested as well.

Look at the following pictures during Simon's talk on JavaFX:

Either JavaFX or Simon's British accent was having an amorous effect on the audience, or it was too late on Wednesday night (around 10:30pm) or may be it's just Brazilian culture ;-) Simon's demo on controlling Wii Nintendo and JavaFX was very well appreciated (lots of whistles for a long time). You can see the demo here:



Once again, freebies got the attendees excited. Thanks Koshuke for the tip and Aaron (JUG Program Coordinator) to provide the goodies. It was definitely worth carrying them all the way. A picture is worth a thousand words and here are a few to prove that:



Check out some other pictures from the JUG meeting:

The evening ended with a late night BBQ dinner at a friend's house, really great dinner and wonderful hospitality. The topic of discussions ranged from Cricket, most pointeless/boring sports in Olympics, Mah-jong, traffic in India :) My second dinner in Brazil and I'm still sleeping/eating Pacific Time zone :)

Once again, a wonderful arrangement by Mauricio, Daniel & Fernando. Obrigado!

Here is the complete album so far:




Technorati: conf glassfish brazil taguatinga jug dfjug

GlassFish @ DF JUG in Brasilia

Posted by arungupta on September 24, 2008 at 04:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Started San Francisco 2 days back, through Washington Dulles, with a stop over @ Rio de Janeiro and finally arrived Brasilia yesterday. The local airlines (TAM) from Rio to Brasilia offered a nice sandwich where as any meal need to be bought during domestic travel in US (even if it's across the continent). So that was a nice experience!

Daniel deOliveira, a Java Champion and DF JUG(oldest & biggest with 33,000 member Java User Group) founder and leader picked me up at the airport. He demonstrated true welcoming spirit by taking me around the city and showing the key places. And again he volunteered to take me to the venue of JUG. It was pretty impressive to know that he teaches Java to deaf and blind as part of social responsiblity program in his company. At the JUG venue, I met Fernando Anselmo - Architect of Solutions of Directory of Solutions @ Politec, a Java Champion, DFJUG Moderator, and an avid NetBeans user, mostly the mobile part. And when in Brazil, you need to drink coffee and that's what he offered! And finally met Mauricio Leal (SDN Program Manager for Latin America) who is coordinating my visits. I've been talking to Mauricio for past few days and it was great to meet him in person.

Back to the JUG, I presented on "GlassFish: The Best Open Source Application Server" and the slides are available here.

Do you know Brazilian government mandates usage of only open-source software ? GlassFish is an 100% open-source and commercially supported enterprise Application Server. So drop a comment on this blog if you are aware of an opportunity for GlassFish.


There were 130 attendees but strangely not even a single question. That's not the kind of audience I expected ;) But I don't feel completely disappointed because there were no questions during Mauricio's preso (who speaks local language) and other English-speaking presenters. The translators did a tremendous job by matching pace of all the presenters.  Doris presented on Grizzly Comet and Simon on JavaFX.

A few more JUGs are scheduled so hopefully I'll see some interaction going. The true spirit was quite evident when tee-shirts and other goodies were thrown to the audience, always a hit! I was also truly impressed by the audience staying from 7-11pm, and that too without any food or drink ;-)

Check out some pictures:

The evening ended with a late night dinner at Fogo de Chao. I was quite surprised that the dinner was still open at 11:15pm in the night, this is quite unlike San Francisco Bay Area where typically last dinner entry is taken at 9:30pm! The food was good and the highlight was luscious mango.

Drop a comment if you attended the talk and liked (or did not) it :)

Here is the complete album so far:




Technorati: conf glassfish brazil jug dfjug

LOTD #9: Slides for Deploying and Monitoring Ruby on Rails Tutorial @ Rails Conf Europe 2008

Posted by arungupta on September 23, 2008 at 09:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)


During Rails Conf Europe 2008 Day 1 I attended an excellent tutorial on Deploying and Monitoring Ruby on Rails. The session very clearly explained the several deployment options with Rails. My notes from the session are here and the slides are now available. 

Here are couple of snapshots from the slide:





The complete set of slides from Rails Conf Europe 2008 are available here.

Technorati: conf railsconf glassfish deployment rubyonrails berlin

TOTD #46: Facelets with Java Server Faces 1.2

Posted by arungupta on September 22, 2008 at 06:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)


This blog updates TOTD #45 to use Facelets as view technology.

Powerful templating system, re-use and ease-of-development, designer-friendly are the key benefits of Facelets. Facelets are already an integral part of Java Server Faces 2.0. But this blog shows how to use them with JSF 1.2.
  1. Download Facelets from here (or specifically 1.1.14). Facelets Developer Documentation is a comprehensive source of information.
  2. Add "jsf-facelets.jar" from the expanded directory to Project/Libraries as shown:

  3. Change the JSF view documents to ".xhtml" by adding the a new context parameter in "web.xml" as:

    <context-param>
        <param-name>javax.faces.DEFAULT_SUFFIX</param-name>
        <param-value>.xhtml</param-value>
      </context-param>

    The updated "web.xml" looks like:

  4. Specify Facelets as the ViewHandler of JSF application by adding the following fragment to "faces-config.xml":

      <application>
        <view-handler>com.sun.facelets.FaceletViewHandler</view-handler>   
      </application>

    The updated document looks like:


  5. Create three new XHTML pages by right-clicking on the project, selecting "New", "XHTML" and name them as "template", "welcome" and "result". This creates "template.xhtml", "welcome.xhtml" and "result.xhtml" in "Web Pages" folder. 
    1. Replace the generated code in "template.xtml" with the code given here. Change the <title> text "Facelets: What's your favorite City ?".
    2. Replace the generated code in "welcome.xhtml" with the code given here. Refactor "welcomeJSF.jsp" such that H1 tag and the associated text goes in <ui:define name="title"> and rest of the content goes in <ui:define name="body">. Also change the value of "template" attribute of <ui:composition> by removing "/". The updated page looks like:

    3. Replace the generated code in "result.xhtml" with the code given here. Refactor "result.jsp" such that H1 tag and the associated text goes in <ui:define name="title"> and rest of the content goes in <ui:define name="body">. Also add a namespace declaration for "http://java.sun.com/jsf/core".

      Optionally change the <h:form> associated with the command button to:

                      <form jsfc="h:form">
                          <input jsfc="h:commandButton" action="back" value="Back"/>
                      </form> 

      The updated page looks like:


  6. Add couple of more navigation rules to "faces-config.xml":

        <navigation-rule>
            <from-view-id>/welcome.xhtml</from-view-id>
            <navigation-case>
                <from-outcome>submit</from-outcome>
                <to-view-id>/result.xhtml</to-view-id>
            </navigation-case>
        </navigation-rule>
        <navigation-rule>
            <from-view-id>/result.xhtml</from-view-id>
            <navigation-case>
                <from-outcome>back</from-outcome>
                <to-view-id>/welcome.xhtml</to-view-id>
            </navigation-case>
        </navigation-rule>
And that's it, Facelets-based application is now available at "http://localhost:8080/Cities/faces/welcome.xhtml". The interaction is exactly similar to as shown in TOTD #45 and some of the sample images (borrowed from TOTD #45) are:

Now this application is using Facelets as the view technology instead of the in-built view definition framework.
Please leave suggestions on other TOTD (Tip Of The Day) that you'd like to see. A complete archive of all tips is available here.

Technorati: totd javaserverfaces facelets netbeans glassfish

LOTD #8: sun.com/students launced: Everything about Sun and Students

Posted by arungupta on September 19, 2008 at 07:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)


sun.com/students is one-stop for all students interested in Sun Microsystems.

It has content related to all students:
and many other pointers. Visit sun.com/students today!

Here are few GlassFish specific pointers for students:
Technorati: lotd students sun glassfish spotlight


LOTD #7: Happy User of FREE GlassFish Hosting @ OStatic/LayerTech

Posted by arungupta on September 19, 2008 at 07:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Alex De Marco is a happy user of FREE 12-months GlassFish Hosting @ OStatic. Here is what he has to say:

Many thanks to OStatic and LayeredTech for offering free hosting, and to Sun for providing a powerful yet free application development stack: Glassfish, Java, MySQL, and OpenSolaris. VERY MUCH appreciated!

You can avail this exclusive and limited-time offer here!

Technorati: glassfish startup hosting ostatic layeredtech

TOTD #45: Ajaxifying Java Server Faces using JSF Extensions

Posted by arungupta on September 17, 2008 at 05:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)


TOTD #42 explained how to create a simple Java Server Faces application using NetBeans 6.1 and deploy on GlassFish. In the process it explained some basic JSF concepts as well. If you remember, it built an application that allows you to create a database of cities/country of your choice. In that application, any city/country combination can be entered twice and no errors are reported.

This blog entry extends TOTD #42 and show the list of cities, that have already been entered, starting with the letters entered in the text box. And instead of refreshing the entire page, it uses JSF Extensions to make an Ajax call to the endpoint and show the list of cities based upon the text entered. This behavior is similar to Autocomplete and shows the suggestions in a separate text box.

Let's get started!
  1. Download latest JSF-Extensions release.
  2. Unzip the bundle as:

    ~/tools >gunzip -c ~/Downloads/jsf-extensions-0.1.tar.gz | tar xvf -
  3. In NetBeans IDE, add the following jars to Project/Libraries

  4. Edit "welcomeJSF.jsp"
    1. Add the following to the required tag libraries

      <%@taglib prefix="jsfExt" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/extensions/dynafaces" %>

      The updated page looks like:

    2. Add the following tag as the first tag inside <f:view>

      <jsfExt:scripts />

      The updated page looks like:

    3. Add prependId="false" to "<h:form>" tag. The updated tag looks like:

    4. Add the following fragment as an attribute to <h:inputText> tag with "cityName" id:

      onkeyup="DynaFaces.fireAjaxTransaction(this, { execute: 'cityName', render: 'city_choices', immediate: true});"

      This is the magic fragment that issues an Ajax call to the endpoint. It ensures execute portion of the request lifecycle is executed for "cityName" and "city_choices" (defined later) is rendered.

      The updated page looks like:

    5. Add a new <h:outputText> tag after <h:commandButton> tag (to hold the suggestions output):

      <h:outputText id="city_choices" value="#{dbUtil.cityChoices}"></h:outputText>

      The updated page looks like:

  5. Add the following fragment to web.xml

           <init-param>
              <param-name>javax.faces.LIFECYCLE_ID</param-name>
              <param-value>com.sun.faces.lifecycle.PARTIAL</param-value>
            </init-param>

    The updated file looks like:

  6. Edit "server.Cities" class
    1. Add a new NamedQuery in Cities class (at the mark after yellow-highlighted parentheses):




      The query is:

      @NamedQuery(name = "Cities.findSimilarName", query = "SELECT c FROM Cities c WHERE LOWER(c.cityName) LIKE :searchString"),

      This NamedQuery queries the database and return a list of city names that matches the pattern specified in "searchString" parameter.
    2. Change the toString() method implementation to return "cityName". The updated method looks like:



      This allows the city name to be printed clearly.
  7. Add a new method in "server.DatabaseUtil" as:

        public Collection<Cities> getCityChoices() {
            Collection<Cities> allCities = new ArrayList<Cities>();

            if (cities.getCityName() != null && !cities.getCityName().equals("")) {
                List list = entityManager.createNamedQuery("Cities.findSimilarName").
                        setParameter("searchString", cities.getCityName().toLowerCase() + "%").
                        getResultList();
                for (int i = 0; i < list.size(); i++) {
                    allCities.add((Cities) list.get(i));
                }
               
            }
            return allCities;
        }

    This method uses previously defined NamedQuery and adds a parameter for pattern matching.
Now, play time!

The list of created cities is:



If "S" is entered in the text box (http://localhost:8080/Cities/), then the following output is shown:



Entering "San", shows:



Entering "Sant" shows:



Entering "De" updates the page as:



And finally entering "Ber" shows the output as:



So you built a simple Ajaxified Java Server Faces application using JSF Extensions.

Here are some more references to look at:
  1. JSF Extensions Getting Started Guide
  2. Tech Tip: Adding Ajax to Java Server Faces Technology with Dynamic Faces
  3. JSF Extensions Ajax Reference
Java Server Faces 2.0 has Ajax functionality integrated into the spec and this should be more seamless. I'll try that next!

Please leave suggestions on other TOTD (Tip Of The Day) that you'd like to see. A complete archive of all tips is available here.

Technorati: totd mysql javaserverfaces netbeans glassfish ajax

GlassFish swimming to Brazil

Posted by arungupta on September 12, 2008 at 05:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September is the month of Java in Brazil. There are developer events and Java conferences through out the country. And the month ends by kick starting Sun Tech Days in the city of Sao Paulo. Kohsuke is already in Brazil and here is my schedule:

Sep 23-26 Brasilia
Sep 27 Vitoria
Sep 28-Oct 1 Sau Paulo

I'll be talking about GlassFish, it's ecosystem, Scripting Langauges & Web frameworks (for example Ruby-on-Rails and Groovy-on-Grails), Hudson, Web services and anything else around GlassFish :)

This is my first trip to Brazil so I'm really excited and gathered some facts. Here are some interesting tidbits:
  • Largest and mot populous country in South America
  • Fifth largest country by geographical area (5.7% of total land, approx 88% of USA)
  • Fifth most populous country (2.81 % of world population, approx 61% of USA)
  • Consists of 26 states and one Federal District, Brasilia is the capital city, Sao Paulo is the economic center
  • Equator line passes through the northern tip of Brazl in the state of Amapa (my first trip to Southern Hemisphere)
  • Has 60% of the biggest and the richest tropical rainforest - Amazon Rainforest (most diverse population of birds)
  • Brazilian Football (known as Soccer in USA) has produced some of finest players - Pele, Three R's (Ronaldo, Rivaldo & Ronaldinho). And they have won FIFA World Cup Football a record 5 times.
  • Samba Dance and Rio Carnival demonstrates the true dancing spirit
And of course To Brazil by Venga Boys as shown in the video below:



Lets hope I get my visa in time before the travel ;-)

More details to come ...

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Kenai - High Throughput and Scalable Rails on GlassFish

Posted by arungupta on September 11, 2008 at 06:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)



Kenai (pronounced 'keen-eye') is a fictional character from Disney's Brother Bear series. It's also a river, mountain range, national park, peninsula and a city in the southern coast of Alaska in the United States. But that's got nothing to do (as much as I know) with either Rails or GlassFish.


But Project Kenai was announced last week. It's a developer hub with SCM, issue tracking, forums and similar stuff you need for hosting your open source projects. And it is a Rails application deployed on GlassFish v2. 

Read all about it in an interview with the lead developer Nick Sieger. Fernando gave a great overview (slides here), with excellent tuning tips for Rails on GlassFish, in Rails Conf Europe last week.

Other Rails on GlassFish success stories are described here.

And if you want, enjoy this beautiful video of Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.



Technorati: rubyonrails jruby ruby glassfish stories kenai

Rails Conf Europe 2008 - Day 3

Posted by arungupta on September 05, 2008 at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Last day of Rails Conf Europe 2008 (Day 1 & Day 2), and it's finally over!

David Black's opening session talked about Ruby and Rails Symposium: Versions, Implementations, and the Future. Here is a brief summary of MRI Ruby versions:
  • Ruby 1.8.6
    • Bread and butter for many of us
  • 1.8.7
    • 1.8 with lots of backported 1.9 features
    • Help with migration to 1.9
    • Not gaining traction, is it ?
  • 1.9.0
    • First release of 1.9
    • Not particularly feature stable
    • Not in wide production use.
  • 1.9.1
    • Feature freeze 9/25
    • Release Christmas 2008 (planned)
    • Expected to be more stable
The talk showed some of the new features coming up in Ruby 1.9.x. An informal survey of audience indicated the following numbers:
  • 4 - How many are using 1.8.7 ?
  • 98% - How many are using 1.8.6 ?
  • 1 - How many are using 1.9.0 ?
  • 4 - Tried 1.8.7 and not switching
  • 3 - Tried 1.9 and not switching
  • 85% - Never tried 1.9
JRuby is an alternative implementation of Ruby that runs on Java VM.  And when prompted, I quoted all the JRuby numbers (75% memory improvement with upcoming Rails 2.2, 33,000 assertions from Ruby Spec and 22,000 tests for Ruby 1.8.6 compliance, Ongoing work on Ruby 1.9 compliance). JRuby "It's just Ruby" - knowing Java is not a pre-requisite to run JRuby for your Ruby or Rails applications!

In Developing Ruby and Rails applications with the NetBeans IDE talk, Erno & Petr showed all the cool features of Ruby/Rails editing, syntax highlighting, debugging, project creation, refactoring and many more. You can find all about it here.

Rails powered by GlassFish talk was well attended. The slides are available here and if you attended the session, please rate it here. I value your feedback. Some of the excerpts from the talk are:
Let us know by sending an email to webtier@glassfish.dev.java.net if you are using JRuby or GlassFish or JRuby and GlassFish in production. We'll be happy to feature you on blogs.sun.com/stories.

Rails 2.0.4 and 2.1.1 were released during the conference. Now I need to start working on all the different blogs promised earlier this week :)

Here are some pictures from Day 3:



And finally the complete photo album:




Next stop - Braaaazzzil!

Technorati: conf railsconf berlin rubyonrails

Rails Conf Europe 2008 - Day 2

Posted by arungupta on September 05, 2008 at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Rails Conf Europe 2008 Day 1 was mostly about tutorials.

On Day 2, David Black gave the opening session. After some logistics he introduced the favorite son of Chicago - David Heinemeier Hansson. The theme of DHH's session was "Legacy Software". Now that Rails is 5 years old, the discussions of legacy is indeed meaningful. He showed some code from BaseCamp and showed how refactoring can deal with legacy. I love his statement "What you write today will become legacy". That is indeed so true especially given the fact that Rails community is now thinking about legacy. There is Rails 1.2.x, 2.0.x, 2.1 and 2.2 coming up - it was bound to happen. Overall a great session and love the honesty!

In JRuby: The Other Red Meat by Tom Enebo, the highlights were:
  • JRuby is "It's just Ruby". No prior knowledge of Java is required, at all, to run JRuby.
  • 22,000 tests and 33,000 assertions (from Ruby Spec) all pass to ensure 1.8.6 compliance.
  • 75% memory improvement with upcoming Rails 2.2. The numbers captured from the preso for 1000 requests and 10 concurrent users are:

    10 Rails instances Edge Rails
    Startup Memory 200 Mb 50 Mb
    Heap (at end) 233 Mb 55 Mb

    I'll explain in a detailed post later on how to generate these numbers
  • Several JRuby success stories
  • FFI support in JRuby that will make converting a C-based plugin to pure-Ruby a breeze
In Rails Software Metrics Roderick talked about different tools to generate metrics for Rails applications.
  • rake stats: Provides Code to Test Ratio (0.8 to 1.6 is a good range)
  • flog: Tracking code complexity (available as gem, useful for refactoring, elaborates on complexity)
  • rcov: Tracking test coverage (analyzes line coverage, available as gem)
  • heckle: Analyzes branch coverage (available as gem, dynamically mutates your code - flipping a branch should cause test failire, takes very long, not feasible for TDD)
  • saikuro: Cyclometic complexity (Decidedly scientific graph theory, available as gem, highlights overly complex methods, useful to spot refactoring methods)
  • metrics_fu: Set of Rake tasks to use with CruiseControl, Runs all of the before mentioned on a check-in. Anybody interested in integrating that with Hudson ?
The advise "A single metric is seldom useful, pair them to see what's going on." is certainly very practical.

Fernando explained in details in his session, Achieving High Throughput and Scalability with JRuby on Rails, on how to tune GlassFish for Rails applications. Look for his slides, they got real meat from a Rails application running on production with multiple concurrent requests.

At Five Runs exhibit, I found about FiveRuns monitoring on JRuby. That means you can generate all the performance monitoring data on GlassFish. And then there is nagios and stickshift for monitoring. That's a few blog posts for me later :)

Here are some of the sessions I plan to attend Day 2:

Here are some pictures from Day 2:



And you can see the gourmet lunch was not only beautifully decorated, it was equally luscious:


And finally the complete photo album so far:




Stay tuned for Day 3 blog!

Technorati: conf railsconf berlin rubyonrails

GlassFish and MySQL Student Contest - 3 steps to earn $500

Posted by arungupta on September 03, 2008 at 05:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Are you a student and like to earn $500 ? Here are three steps:
That's all it takes for a chance to win $500. And there are 5 $250 second prizes as well. The prize money comes right in time for winter holiday shopping :)

A pre-compiled list of several projects is available for you to get started. And you can certainly churn an innovative idea from your creative mind!

Make sure to read the contest rules before applying, complete details here. Make sure to submit a substantive feedback since that is an important part of judging the submission.

Do you know:
  • NetBeans IDE allows you to create several Java EE modules like JSP, Servlets, Java Persistence Units, Enterprise Java Beans, Java Server Faces and Web services seamlessly and deploy them directly on GlassFish.
  • Rails and Grails applications can be deployed on GlassFish v2 UR2 as WAR files.
  • Metro is an extensible and highly performant Web services stack in GlassFish. New functionality can be easily added by creating and configuring your pipes.
And there are many more features that allow your developer instincts to contribute something valuable to GlassFish ecosystem. Let those bright minds run free and start working on it today! The contest ends October 22, 2008.

spotlight.dev.java.net is a onestop that provides links to several demos, screencasts, presentations, tutorials that can be leveraged for your curriculum.

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Rails Conf Europe 2008 - End of Tutorial Day

Posted by arungupta on September 03, 2008 at 12:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)


Sep 2, 2008 was the Tutorials Day @ Rails Conf Europe. I attended Renegade's Guide to Hacking Rails Internals (partly) and Deploying and Monitoring Ruby on Rails. The first session did exactly what it says - explained the complete internals, digging deep into the code and how to hack them to meet your needs. I thoroughly enjoyed the second tutorial as it covered the deployment in detail and somewhat monitoring.

The first part covered the common Application Server and Web/Proxy Servers used for Rails deployment. It explained the different deployment scenarios and their pros/cons. The Application Servers (along with their detailed notes) are:
  • FastCGI
    • Use mod_fcgi
    • Proxy local and remove FastCGI instances
    • Oldest way of deploying Rails
    • Deprecated & Unstable (security problems in impl of Apache2, easy to get zombie processes, works for some)
    • Hard to debug
    • Dont' use in production
  • Mongrel
    • As an alternative to FastCGI
    • Complete HTTP-server that can load arbitrary Ruby-servlets
    • Built-in Rails support
    • Utility to manage several Mongrel clusters (mongrel_cluster)
    • Very robust, strict HTTP parser, easy to debug
    • Defacto standard deployment with Apache 2.2 and mod_proxy_balancer
    • Can be a bit difficult to setup
    • Not so easy on mass/virtual hosting
  • mod_rails (aka Phusion Passenger)
    • Similar to mod_php
    • Fairly new module of Apache 2.2
    • Allows Apache to control Rails instances
    • Apache starts/stop app instance depending on the app load
    • Very easy to setup
    • Able to run any RACK-compatible Ruby app
    • Pros
      • Touching a file "restart.txt" and Phusion automatically restarts all the Rails instances
      • All Rails instances are local to a machine
      • HTTP balancer is required to spawn across multiple machines
      • Fairly new but ready for production
      • Makes setup easier - on single machine
      • Multiple server still require load balancer
      • Suitable for mass hosting
  • JRuby, GlassFish & Co
    • Similar to mod_rails where multiple runtimes can run on a single machine
    • WAR-based deployments
    • Suitable for Java shops
    • Database connection pooling
I'll be talking all about Rails and GlassFish in my session tomorrow @ 1:40pm
Here are the requirements on Proxy servers:
  • Hide cluster backend from the user
  • Load-balancer backend instances
  • Recognize down hosts
  • Fair scheduler
And the different choices (along with their notes) are:
  • Apache2
    • Introduced mod_proxy_balancer
    • Can speak to multiple backends and balance requests
    • Can act as pure proxy or can also serve static files
    • Deliver static content
    • Pros
      • Very old, mature, stable
      • Many people know  how to work with Apache
      • Integrates well with other modules (SVN, DAV, etc)
    • Cons
      • Can be complicated to configure
      • The stock Apache is quite resource-hungry (12-15 KB, where nginx takes 3-5 KB and 20% faster serving of static files) compared to pure proxy solutions
  • nginx
    • Popular Russian web server with good proxy support (40% websites in Russia run nginx)
    • Can load-balance multiple backends and deliver static content
    • Quite popular with Mongrel as Rails backend
    • Simple configuration file - http://brainspl.at/nginx.conf.txt (nginx conf file)
    • Pros
      • Stable, Robust, Fast
      • Use fewer resources (CPU & RAM) than Apache proxy-mode & static files
      • Simple configuration file
      • Can directly talk to memcached - SSI
    • Cons
      • More documentation would be nice
      • No equivalent for many Apache modules
  • LightTPD
    • Lightweight and Fast web server
    • Balancing proxy server
    • Good FastCGI support
    • Used to be popular - until Mongrel came around
    • Nobody is using these days in production
    • Pros
      • Fast & lightweight
      • User fewer resources
      • Simpler configuration file
    • Cons
      • Unstable for some people
      • Slow development cycle
      • More docs would be nice
  • HA-Proxy (also applies to Pen and Pound)
    • Reliable, High performance TCP/HTTP-level balancer (SNMP or MySQL proxying too)
    • Proxying and content inspection
    • No content serving, just a proxy
    • Pros
      • Mature, stable & fast
      • TCP & HTTP Balancing
    • Cons
      • Few Rails examples
      • Usually not needed in Rails setup
After discussing all the options in detail, the recommendations were:
  • Small site - Apache 2.2 with mod_rails
  • Medium site - Apache 2.2 as front-end proxy + Mongrel or mod_rails as backend, Deliver static files with Apache.Not nginx because it does not depend on the extra power to deliver static files.
  • Large Rails site - Redundant load-balancer, redundant proxy/web, Mongrel/mod_rails
  • Heavy static files - Dynamic requests to Apache+mod_rails, static files nginx/lighttpd
  • Java Shop - WAR fles + integrate with existing Java landscape and infrastructure
Then it explained Capistrano, Webistrano, Macistrano and ran through a practical lab of using them.

The tutorial concluded by discussing monitoring. The two criteria for monitoring are:
  • Is it still running ?
  • What are the trends ?
The two main recommendations are:
  • Monit
    • Process-level monitoring
    • Checks PID-files, ports and perms
    • Reacts by executing a script and/or alerting
  • Munin
    • Host level monitoring tool
    • Master periodically ask nodes for local data
    • Check system resources and records historical data
    • Allows to recognize trends and make predictions
    • Alerting support
And other tools that were mentioned as well such as Nagios, Big Brother, New Relic RPM, FiveRuns and JMX. The slides will be published on Rails Conf website so watch this space.

The evening concluded with Q&A from Rails Core Members - DHH, Koz & Jeremy.

Here are some of the sessions I plan to attend tomorrow:
And then there is exhibitor hall as well so will see how much I can attend :) I have to miss the late afternoon and evening sessions/BoFs because of Berlin/Brandenberger JUG preso.

Here are some pictures from yesterday:

And finally the complete photo album so far:



The sessions/exhibit halls start today!

Technorati: conf railsconf berlin rubyonrails

Mango* - King of FOSS Offerings

Posted by arungupta on September 02, 2008 at 05:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)


If there is one thing that I terribly miss after moving to this country, that would be the variety of Mangoes in India. I've been asked at the United States Customs if I'm importing any mangoes. The fruit's flavor, fragrance and color is just great so I don't blame them at all. There is even International Mango Festival conducted every year since 1987 in Delhi. The festival features more than 550 varieties for visitors to view and taste.

I can talk at lengths about the fruit Mango but this entry is about Mango*. So what is it ?

Project mango* is an initiative to promote the use of Sun's (Free Open Source Software) FOSS stack in the enterprise middleware market. Mango* is an acronym which stands for
  • My SQL And
  • Netbeans
  • Glassfish
  • Open*...(OpenESB or OpenSSO or OpenPortal or OpenSolaris...)

It's not a new prodcut or technology but a packaging of Sun's FOSS offerings that brings reliable, scalable and open software to the enterprise. The main purpose is  to demonstrate and illustrate how enterprises achieve their IT and business goals using Sun's FOSS technologies.

You can taste/download mango* here, it contains the king of FOSS offerings. And don't forget to taste the "king of fruits" on your next visit to India :)

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Rails Conf Europe 2008 and Bratwurst-on-Rails

Posted by arungupta on September 01, 2008 at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I arrived Berlin yesterday on a non-adventurous United flight from San Francisco, just the way I like it! The flight from Frankfurt was delayed 30 minutes but that's normal these days :)

The venue of RailsConf Europe 2008 is same as last year so street names/geography are somewhat familiar. But the conference hotel was sold out so am instead staying across the street. Visited Brandenburger Tor for a short duration after checking into the hotel. Also stopped by the Peugeot showroom on Unter den Linden and saw popular bear figurines in a side street. The evening ended with a social gathering celebrating the popular German culture of Bratwurst-on-Rails.

It's always exciting to meet my blog readers, thank you! Let me know if I'm missing any of your expectations.

The tutorial starts today and the conference starts tomorrow. If you are in Berlin, don't forget to attend the joint JUG and TU-Berlin talk. And my talk on "Rails powered by GlassFish" is scheduled on Thursday, Sep 4 @ 1:40pm.

The evening really eneded with a 40 minutes run and dinner in room service. The Jolly Hotel is really nice, newer rooms, courteous staff, delicious and very neatly prepared Club Chicken sandwich and prompt room service, definitely a good recommendation. However the fitness center is minimal with one ultra-loud treadmill and 3 other basic machines. The hotel staff informed that they are working on furnishing the fitness center (known as Wellness Center here). And there is only one American channel which is only talking about Storm Gustav and Republican National Convetion, Juno of Juneau since my arrival  :(

Anyway, enjoy the pictures so far!