claymitchell.net

While working on some existing code (that someone else wrote), I got this error:

_recon_5F_tabs.java:45: code too large for try statement

I work on the 10th floor of the Charlotte Plaza building. I have come to believe that this building has the worst elevator system on the planet and is probably the worst office building in uptown Charlotte. I had previously believe that the International Trade Center held this title, as it was commonly referred to as the ghetto of uptown Charlotte office buildings. But I was wrong. In the time since January 18th, 2008, I have experienced the following problems with the elevators that service floors 2 through 15:

• General slowness
• Random stops
• Floors being randomly highlighted as destinations; for example, one particular elevator will show 13 as a destination even though it is going down from the 10th floor
• Unresponsiveness – I’ve gotten on an elevator on the 2nd floor, pressed #10 and it just sits there.
• Inaccurate direction indicators; think that elevator is going up? Wrong.
• Summon lights randomly turning off
• Simply not working

Two examples stand out in my mind. One day we could not get an elevator to arrive at our floor that was going down. In a span of 10 minutes, we saw half a dozen going up, while none ever went down. Becoming fed up up, I eventually got on an elevator that was going up. Turns out the light was wrong, this one was headed downwards.

Just today, I walked over and pressed the down button. Nothing happened. I pressed the up button. No response. I sat there for a few minutes, waiting for something to happen, pressing down or up every 30 seconds or so. Nearly having given up, the down button suddenly lights up and an elevator arrives.

Argh.

I discovered a bug while monkeying around with trac, the absolutely wonderful, not to mention free (as in beer) wiki & bug tracking system aimed at software development – it’s Subversion browser breaks if your database is PostgreSQL 8.3. It works if it’s an empty repository, but as soon as you add a file or folder, it throws an error message like this:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/Trac-0.11b1-py2.5.egg/trac/web/api.py", line 339, in send_error
'text/html')
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/Trac-0.11b1-py2.5.egg/trac/web/chrome.py", line 670, in render_template
if not req.session or not int(req.session.get('accesskeys', 0)):
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/Trac-0.11b1-py2.5.egg/trac/web/api.py", line 168, in __getattr__
value = self.callbacks[name](self)
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/Trac-0.11b1-py2.5.egg/trac/web/main.py", line 255, in _get_session
return Session(self.env, req)
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/Trac-0.11b1-py2.5.egg/trac/web/session.py", line 48, in __init__
self.get_session(sid)
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/Trac-0.11b1-py2.5.egg/trac/web/session.py", line 74, in get_session
(sid, int(authenticated)))
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/Trac-0.11b1-py2.5.egg/trac/db/util.py", line 50, in execute
return self.cursor.execute(sql_escape_percent(sql), args)
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/Trac-0.11b1-py2.5.egg/trac/db/util.py", line 50, in execute
return self.cursor.execute(sql_escape_percent(sql), args)
ProgrammingError: current transaction is aborted, commands ignored until end of transaction block

Fortunately there is a work around: Change the repository_type value in trac.ini to direct-svnfs instead of svn. A ticket has been opened on over on trac’s trac site

I spent a fair amount of time banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how @SessionAttributes works in Spring’s annotations. The concept and implementation is fairly simple, the use and lack of documentation is confusing. Here’s your standard usage:

@Controller@RequestMapping("/someForm.do")
@SessionAttributes("fooForm")
public class FooFormController {
	@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET)
	public String setupForm(ModelMap model) {
 		FooForm fooForm = new FooForm();
 		// populate fooForm
 		model.addAttribute("fooForm", fooForm);
 		return "fooFormDisplayPage.jsp";
 	}

	@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
 	public String processForm(@ModelAttribute("fooForm") FooForm fooForm) {
 		// do something with fooForm
 		status.setComplete();
 		return "redirect:/someOtherView";
	}
}

The way this works is that the object that is inserted into the ModelMap and identified by @SessionAttributes is stored in the session across the life of the controller. The ModelMap object’s lifespan is tied directly to that of the controller object. Despite it’s name, @SessionAttributes has absolutely nothing to do with HttpSession.set/getAttribute(), it’s simply the annotated version of <sessionForm> from the xml version of the Spring configuration. The upshot of this is that the value identified in @SessionAttributes is not available to a different controller.

What if you want to store something in the session across multiple requests? The tried and true method of storing it in the HttpSession is still valid:

@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST);
public String processForm(@ModelAttribute("fooForm") FooForm fooForm,
                          HttpSession session) {
	// do something with fooForm
        session.setAttribute("fooForm", fooForm);
	status.setComplete();
        return "redirect:/someOtherView";
}

You can also define multiple request mappings inside of the same Controller object

@Controller
public class MultiViewController {
	@RequestMapping("/foo");
	public String handleFooRequest(ModelMap model) {
		// Handle request
	}
	@RequestMapping("/bar");
	public String handleBarRequest(ModelMap model) {
		// Handle request
	}
}

And there you go. Annotations are neat, allow for straight up pojos, and remove a lot of unnecessary XML configuration. Use them, just make sure they are adequately documented.

We went to The Prenatal Picture this weekend partly to get some new pictures but primarily to confirm that the little monkey growing inside Kandace’s womb was indeed a female. Well, bring on the pink blankets, we’ve got confirmation. We’ve also got a truck load of new pictures.

The Prenatal Picture was a fairly amusing experience – the ultrasound room is dimly lit, with light music in the background, and the ultrasound is projected onto the wall so that friends and/or family can watch while being seated comfortably in the living room area set in front of the projection screen.