Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development

Bye Bye Embarcadero

Andreano Lanusse — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:01:16 +0000

Dear developers,

My Borland history began in Brazil on December of 1995, had so many chapters (Borland/Inprise/CodeGear/Embarcadero), a new and important chapter started in December of 2006 when I moved to the United States and today this chapter comes to an end. Today is my last day at Embarcadero Technologies.

I would like to thank all of you around the world for the great time we shared together during all of this years, for all the conversations face-to-face, online, by email or phone. I have been your advocate during all of this years was something unique and enjoyable, something I will always take with me.

The 17 years of Delphi was only possible because of the support of this energetic community, keep sending your feedbacks to Embarcadero, specially now with FireMonkey, which has a long way to go.

This blog will continue and software development will continue to be the predominant topic here. My videos on YouTube will continue and I expected to publish other videos as well. Finally you can continue or start following me on Twitter @andreanolanusse

I will be around and you can contact me here or via e-mail andreano AT gmail DOT com

Now is time to start writing the next chapter and look for new opportunities, that I expect to be challenging and fun.

Sincerely,

Andreano Lanusse

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

Hundreds of hidden Mac OS X features – tips and tricks

Andreano Lanusse — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 04:09:06 +0000

If you are Mac user visit the following link , on this link you will find hundreds of hidden features, tips and tricks for Mac OS X.

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/400/please-share-your-hidden-mac-os-x-features-or-tips-and-tricks

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

Software Development, technologies and other matters #6

Andreano Lanusse — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 07:01:05 +0000

Hi everyone, another monthly summary.

Microsoft release the source code for ASP.NET Web API and ASP.NET Web Pages (aka Razor) under an open source license (Apache 2.0). That means you can change it, redistribute your changes, even fork it if you want. MS-PL is an OSI-Approved Open Source License and you can read the legalese on their site
Delphi and C++Builder developers only 2 days left, the upgrade pricing for 2007 and earlier users ends March 30th and the buy one tool, get an additional tool free offer also ends March 30th
Very good article about transitions and animations, and how to use them effectively. Relevant for developers that are using or planing to use FireMonkey
Great blog post about migrating an app from iOS to Android
Delphi Project of the Month – TMS Aurelius ORM framework for Delphi with full support for data manipulation, complex and advanced queries, inheritance, polymorphism, and more… created by TMS Software
Watch this First Images From the Bottom of the World

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

TDBXJsonTools copy/convert data between TDataSet – TJSONObject – DBXReader

Andreano Lanusse — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 09:30:20 +0000

You can copy data from DBXReader to ClientDataSet and vice-versa using dbxExpress framework, you probably already read some of my blog posts where I explain how it works in desktop applications, however in mobile platforms we don’t have ClientDataSet and in case you want something similar you always, what can you do?

DataSnap Mobile Connectors has a class called TDBXJsonTools, this class allows developers to copy/convert data between DBXReader, TJSONObject, DBXReader and other types, you can do that in any mobile platform supported by the connectors, like: Java/Android, Java/BlackBerry, Objective-C, C#/Windows Phone and FreePascal.

In a native desktop application you would use TDBXDataSetReader.CopyReaderToClientDataSet(Reader, ClientDataSet) to copy the DBXReader to a ClientDataSet, in the mobile apps you will use TDBXJsonTools.CreateTDataSetFromJSON(DBXReader.asJSONObject).

Meanwhile, this is not only about copy/convert data, it gives you several ways to interact and transport data using different types and take advantage of the native types in each platform. For example, when using DataSet in FireMonkey on iOS it will use TDataSet class from FreePascal/Delphi RTL, when using with Java, TDataSet will be extension of TDBXReader and so on.

DBXReader is unidirectional and navigation is limited, when using FireMonkey on iOS developers can copy the DBXReader data to a DataSet, which is bi-directional, it will enable the navigation and use of other DataSet features.

The following code represents the TDBXJsonTools interface for FreePascal.

  TDBXJsonTools = class
  public
    class procedure jsonToDBX(obj: TJSONValue; var value: TDBXValue; dbxTypeName: String);
    class procedure JSONToValueType(json: TJSONArray; var vt: TDBXValueType);
    class function DBXParametersToJSONObject(dbxParameters: TDSParams) : TJSONObject;
    class function DBXReaderToJSONObject(dbxReader: TDBXReader): TJSONObject;
    class function CreateTDataSetFromJSON(value: TJSONObject): TDataset;
    class function TDataSetToJSONObject(value: TDataset): TJSONObject;
    class function GetTFieldTypeByTDBXDataTypes(DBXDataTypes: TDBXDataTypes) : TFieldType;
    class function GetTDBXDataTypesByTFieldType(FieldType: TFieldType) : TDBXDataTypes;
    class function CreateTStreamFromJSONArray(value: TJSONArray): TStream;
    class function StreamToJSONArray(value: TStream): TJSONArray;
    class function JSONToTableType(value: TJSONValue; dbxTypeName: String): TObject;
    class function SerializeTableType(Objetc: TObject): TJSONObject;

  end;

My recommendation is to continue using DBXReader as the primarily source of data, and when necessary take advantage of the TDBXJsonTools class.

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

FireMonkey 3D Text Editor Delphi source code available

Andreano Lanusse — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 22:17:53 +0000

Hi everyone, as promised the source code for the FireMonkey 3D Text Editor is available on our RAD Studio demo SVN repository.

You can check out the code using the following command line:

svn co https://radstudiodemos.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/radstudiodemos/
branches/RadStudio_XE2/FireMonkey/3DTextEditor/

I’m working on the C++ version for Windows and Mac, and iPad version for Delphi, coming soon.

Enjoy!!!!

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

Update 4 for RadPHP XE2 is now available

Andreano Lanusse — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:13:42 +0000

Update 4 for RadPHP XE2 is also available for download.

List of fixes and changes in this update here
Update 4 download for RadPHP XE2 available here

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

Update 4 for Delphi XE2 and C++Builder XE2 is now available

Andreano Lanusse — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 21:53:38 +0000

Delphi and C++Builder XE2 Update 4 is a full inline update that requires uninstalling your existing RAD Studio product before installing the update.

You can obtain this update in any of the following three ways:

You can see all the changes and enhancements related to this release here.

Two important features I would like to highlight: Mac print support using the FireMonkey Printing API and now DataSnap Mobile Connector generate proxy for FreePascal.

You can download the Delphi XE2 and C++Builder XE2 ISO with Update 4 here.

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

Building a FireMonkey 3D Text Editor for Windows and Mac

Andreano Lanusse — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 08:54:12 +0000

During the Delphi Birthday Celebration Webinar I had the opportunity to show a FireMonkey 3D demo application that I have been working for while.

The application is a 3D Text Editor that allows users to interact with 3D objects through rotation, adding colors and texture, changing sizes, export the 3D Text as PNG image and more.

This is a great demo for who is looking to learn more about FireMonkey, it exposes a lot of FireMonkey capabilities. It not only show how you can use 3D, animations, light, camera, 2D elements in 3D container, etc, but how you can create modern UIs, take advantage of the FireMonkey component composition concept, learn how to use Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and more.

I’m preparing a series of blogs posts and videos to explain in more detail the FireMonkey features applied to this application, in the mean time I invite you to watch the following video where I show the application in action.

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

Some historical information about Delphi – 17 years of innovation

Andreano Lanusse — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:43:30 +0000

Today we are celebrating Delphi’s 17th birthday – and 17 years of continuous innovation for the Delphi language, run-time library, Visual Component Library (VCL) and the new FireMonkey next generation business application platform.

To get here, was a long journey and lot of stuff happened. I remember in 1995 when I was developing an ERP with Paradox for Windows and a friend of my gave a CD and he said “Learn this product, it will change the software development world”, and I’m glad I did what he asked for .

The following links tells a little bit about Delphi history.

Borland History: Will The Real Frank Borland Please Stand Up?
Memorabilia: The Adventures of TurboMan
Borland History: Why the name “Delphi?”
Historical Document: Delphi Product Definition 3rd Draft – May 13, 1993
Historical Document: Visual Component Library First Draft – May 24, 1993
Historical Documents: Delphi 1 launch demos source code, launch script, and marketing video
Delphi 2 – Battle of the Visual Masters
Delphi 2 – Building Web enabled apps with Delphi 2.0
Delphi 2 – A Comparison of Client/Server Development Tools; PowerBuilder vs. Delphi
Discovering Delphi – Why choose Delphi 2 over Visual Basic 4/5?
ebook – Secrets of Delphi 2 – Exposing Undocumented Features of Delphi – Download here
ebook – Peter Norton’s Guide to Delphi 2 [1996] – Download here
Borland Delphi 7 VCL Object Hierarchy/Poster/Chart – download here

Some cool and historical videos.

If you want to join the party, register for the celebration webinar that is happening today.

Enjoy the celebration day and Go Delphi!!!!

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

FireMonkey 3D Text Editor

Andreano Lanusse — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:58:59 +0000

If you want to learn more about FireMonkey 3D applications, join me on February 14th for the Delphi Birthday Celebration webinar.

During this webinar we will have several Delphi experts and members of our R&D team showing great technologies using Delphi. I will be there as well showing something that I have been working for a while, the FireMonkey 3D Text Editor, during the webinar I will show you how it was created and share many tips & tricks related with FireMonkey development.

Bellow some screen shots of what I’m planning to show:

3D Text Editor in the IDE

The 3D Text Editor running on Windows, it runs on Mac as well

Image generated by the 3D Text Editor

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

Software Development, technologies and other matters #5

Andreano Lanusse — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:00:44 +0000

My monthly summary is back after long time, let’s try to keep this up to date every month

Jailbreak for iPhone 4S and iPad 2 finally available, hackers had a lot of work to break the new Apple A5 devices.
If you are interested to know how to use the Cloud to scale your applications, the Netflix team posted a really nice article sharing their experience with Amazon “Auto Scaling in the Amazon Cloud”
I’m a iPhone fun, maybe switching for Nokia Lumia 900 (Windows Phone) in the future, and Android is not part of my plan. A few weeks ago I saw this article “Why I Hate Android“, it is at least interesting.
The browser war continues, Chrome is winning and IE still the number one, not sure for how long
Delphi Open Source Project of the Month – DORM is an ORM framework for Delphi created by Daniele Teti
If you need to convert your Delphi and C++Builder VCL projects to FireMonkey, check out this solution called Mida a commercial product that convert VCL projects to FireMonkey
TMS Software releases TMS Instrumentation Workshop for FireMonkey, a set of components for instrumentation and multimedia applications for FireMonkey, it support Windows, Mac and iOS
Great opportunity for Embarcadero customers - BOGO is back!!! – Buy One Developer Tool, Get a Second Tool FREE!
Great post showing how to create FireMonkey shader effects

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the first choice for PHP Developers

Andreano Lanusse — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:58:13 +0000

Today I was reading the article “Developers will flock to public cloud in 2012″, which pretty much goes over some of the results of Zend survey with 3,335 developers, and of course if not all of them the majority PHP developers.

This survey brings some interesting information, the first one related with the use of public cloud where 61 percent said they expect to use a public cloud for their projects.

And, of those going that route, 30 percent named Amazon Web Services as their public cloud of choice; 28 percent did not yet know which cloud they would use; 10 percent named Rackspace; and 6 percent cited Microsoft Azure. ”Other” public clouds came in at 5 percent and IBM Smart Cloud at 3 percent.

In terms of overall type of projects, 66 percent of respondents said they will be doing mobile development in 2012, this is a great opportunity for them to try RadPHP XE2 which bring integration with PhoneGap, components for jQuery Mobile and everything they need to optimize their web apps to mobile.

Also 45 percent said they will work on social media integration this year, if they are targeting Facebook another opportunity to try RadPHP XE2 and see how they can rapidly integrate web application with Facebook.

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

Android apps connected to Delphi DataSnap Server

Andreano Lanusse — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:15:55 +0000

On the following video I’m showing how you can create DataSnap REST Server in Delphi, expose server methods and call them from an Android application. The video shows all the steps to create the server and the Android application.

This is a short recap of the video.

In order to have other platforms connecting and interacting with your DataSnap Server you need to enable the REST Interface, and for mobile platforms you can use the DataSnap Connectors that generate proxy classes for Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and iOS. In the video I’m showing how to create the Server, let’s take a look at the Server Method implementation.

The first server method called InsertCountry, connect on my InterBase database and add a new record to the Country table, see the implementation below:

function TServerMethods1.InsertCountry(Country, Currency: String;
  out Error: String): Boolean;
var
  Comm: TDBXCommand;
begin

  Result := False;

  DBConn.Open;
  Comm := DBConn.DBXConnection.CreateCommand;
  Comm.CommandType := TDBXCommandTypes.DbxSQL;
  Comm.Text :=
    Format('Insert Into Country (COUNTRY, CURRENCY) Values ( ''%s'', ''%s'')',
    [Country, Currency]);

  if not Comm.IsPrepared then
    Comm.Prepare;

  try
    Comm.ExecuteUpdate;
    Comm.Free;
    Result := True;
  except on E: Exception do
    Error := E.Message;
  end;

end;

The second server method is called GetCountries, and returns all the records I have in the COUNTRY table on my InterBase database. This method returns a DBXReader and DataSnap will convert this automatically to JSON at the moment the Android app calls this method, but since we will use the new DataSnap Connector to generate the proxy class, we won’t need to handle the JSON object and I will explain that after.

The following code represents the GetCountries implementation.

function TServerMethods1.GetCountries: TDBXReader;
var
  Comm: TDBXCommand;
begin

  DBConn.Open;
  Comm := DBConn.DBXConnection.CreateCommand;
  Comm.CommandType := TDBXCommandTypes.DbxSQL;
  Comm.Text := 'Select * from Country';

  if not Comm.IsPrepared then
    Comm.Prepare;

  Result := Comm.ExecuteQuery;

end;

The next step is to create the proxy class for Android using the DataSnap connectors, which is a new feature in Delphi XE2. The generation can be done through command line or via HTTP request on your DataSnap server, and in the video I’m showing how to do that.

The proxy generator generates only the DSProxy.java, all the other files part of the DataSnap Connectors are the representation of DataSnap Framework in Java, for example you won’t need to parse the DBXReader as JSON object in Java, just because we have the DBXReader class in Java and it parses the JSON object for you.

The first step to create a REST connection with your DataSnap Server, which will give me a instance of DSRESTConnection. If your DataSnap Server requires authentication you can use the methods SetUserName and SetPassword to define the credentials.

	private DSRESTConnection getConnection() {
		DSRESTConnection conn = new DSRESTConnection();
		conn.setHost("192.168.254.128");
		conn.setPort(8080);
		return conn;
	}

Now, let’s take a look and see how to execute the server methods, starting with the InsertCountry method as you can see in the following code.

After instantiation of the DSRESTConnection, we pass the REST connection object to the TServerMethods1′s instance, which is the client representation of TServerMethods1 on the server, and from there just call InsertCountry.

Since InsertCountry returns Boolean and also the Error message parameter is passed as reference, InsertCountry methods will return a InsertCountryReturns, which is a static class with two parameters: error that represent the error message and returnValue which represent the value return by InsertCountry.

protected void Insert() {

	DSRESTConnection conn = getConnection();

	TServerMethods1 sm = new TServerMethods1(conn);

	try {
		InsertCountryReturns ret;
		ret = sm.InsertCountry(editCountry.getText().toString(), editCurrency.getText().toString(), "");

		if ( ! ret.returnValue ) {
			System.out.println(ret.error);
		}

	} catch (DBXException e) {
		e.printStackTrace();
	}

	// Hide keyboard
	InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager)getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
	imm.hideSoftInputFromWindow(editCountry.getWindowToken(),0);

}

The next method is GetCountries. We start as before by getting the DSRESTConnection instance. The GetCountries method returns a DBXReader and the way we work with the DBXReader class in Java is very similar the way we work in Delphi, use the Next method to interact through the result, and getValue/GetAsXXXXX to get the column value. See the following code:

protected void Refresh() {

	DSRESTConnection conn = getConnection();

	TServerMethods1 sm = new TServerMethods1(conn);

	TDBXReader reader;
	try {
		reader = sm.GetCountries();

		ArrayList COUNTRIES = new ArrayList();

		while (reader.next()) {
			COUNTRIES.add(reader.getValue("COUNTRY").GetAsString());
		}

		// Add the COUNTRIES array in to the list view
		list.setAdapter(new ArrayAdapter(this, android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1, COUNTRIES));

	} catch (DBXException e) {
		e.printStackTrace();
	}

}

This is just a short tutorial explaining how to use DataSnap Connector with Android, take some time and watch the video where I’m going through more details.

The source code is available for download here and download the video from here.

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

Using Regular Expression on C++Builder FireMonkey Application

Andreano Lanusse — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 22:11:14 +0000

Here another C++ example showing how to use the RTL regular expression on C++Builder FireMonkey Application.

This example validate a string content based on four different regular expression, which are:

Checks if the given text is a validate e-mail address
Checks if the given text contains a valid IP address
Checks if the given text is a valid date (dd-mm-yyyy)
Checks if the given text is a valid date (mm-dd-yyyy)

The follow code shows the four regular expressions used by this application.

void __fastcall TForm1::lbRegExpChange(TObject *Sender) {
	switch (lbRegExp->ItemIndex) {
	case 0:
		lbType->Text = "E-mail for validation";

		MemoRegEx->Text =
			"^((?>[a-zA-Z\d!#$%&''*+\\-/=?^_`{|}~]+\\x20*" "|\"((?=[\\x01-\\x7f])[^\"\\\\]|\\\\[\\x01-\\x7f])*\"\\"
			"x20*)*(?\.?[a-zA-Z\d!" "#$%&''*+\\-/=?^_`{|}~]+)+|\"\"((?=[\\x01-\\x7f])"
			"[^\"\\\\]|\\\\[\\x01-\\x7f])*\")@(((?!-)[a-zA-Z\\d\\" "-]+(?)$";

		break;
	case 1: {
			// Accept IP address between 0..255
			lbType->Text = "IP address for validation (0..255)";
			MemoRegEx->Text =
				"\\b(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\" ".(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\."
				"(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\." "(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\b";
			break;

		}
	case 2: {
			// Data interval format mm-dd-yyyy
			lbType->Text =
				"Date in mm-dd-yyyy format from between 01-01-1900 and 12-31-2099";
			MemoRegEx->Text =
				"^(0[1-9]|1[012])[- /.](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[" "01])[- /.](19|20)\\d\\d$";
			break;

		}
	case 3: {
			// Data interval format mm-dd-yyyy
			lbType->Text =
				"Date in dd-mm-yyyy format from between 01-01-1900 and 31-12-2099";
			MemoRegEx->Text =
				"^(0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])[- /.](0[1-9]|1[01" "2])[- /.](19|20)\\d\\d$";
			break;

		}
	}
	EditTextChangeTracking(EditText);

}

To execute the validation you can use the method TRegExp::IsMatch as you can see bellow:

void __fastcall TForm1::EditTextChangeTracking(TObject *Sender) {
       // EditText contain the string value and MemoRegEx the regular expression
	if (TRegEx::IsMatch(EditText->Text, MemoRegEx->Text)) {
		SEResult->ShadowColor = TAlphaColors::Green;
	}
	else
		SEResult->ShadowColor = TAlphaColors::Red;

}

Since this is a FireMonkey Application, I used a Shadow Effect to show if the Edit box value is valid or not (Green=valid / Red=invalid). The following image shows what happen when you input a invalid e-mail address on Windows and Mac.

Now the results when you provide the correct e-mail address.

You can download the source code from here or just update your local RAD Studio XE2 samples folder from our RAD Studio SVN repository.

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

Using dbExpress Framework on Windows and Mac with C++Builder

Andreano Lanusse — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:33:58 +0000

During the following weeks I’m writing a series of C++ examples to demonstrate the use of VCL, FireMonkey, RTL, dbExpress, and others stuff. Each example will have a major focus, but you will be able to learn other stuffs as well. If there is something specific on C++ you would like to see, please let me know and I will do my best to bring that in one of my following posts.

In this first post I demonstrate how to use dbExpress Framework to run SQL’s against your database. Since I want to run the application on Windows and Mac, the console application will target FireMonkey.

The Console Application Wizard for C++ has been updated in C++Builder XE2, adding a Target Framework Option as you can see below.

The following code shows how to connect to an InterBase database, execute a SELECT SQL against the COUNTRY table, and display the results, of course you can use dbExpress Framework to run queries against any database supported by dbExpress, just remember that some dbExpress drivers are not available on Mac in XE2, for example SQL Server and ODBC drivers.

If you are C++ developer you will understand pretty quickly the following code, which has some comments to help you to understand the code.

#include 

#pragma hdrstop
#pragma argsused

#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[]) {

	// Get database connection instance
	std::auto_ptrconn
		(TDBXConnectionFactory::GetConnectionFactory()->GetConnection
		("EMPLOYEE", "sysdba", "masterkey"));

	if (conn.get() != NULL) {

		printf("================= Connection Properties ============\n");

		AnsiString s = conn->ConnectionProperties->Properties->Text + "\n";
		printf(s.c_str());

		// create command and transaction objects to execute the query
		std::auto_ptrcommand(conn->CreateCommand());

                // initiate a transaction
		TDBXTransaction *transaction =
			conn->BeginTransaction(TDBXIsolations::ReadCommitted);

		command->Text = "SELECT * FROM Country";
		command->Prepare();

		// execute the query and get the cursor (DBXReader)
		std::auto_ptrreader(command->ExecuteQuery());

		// print number of columns and each record
		printf(AnsiString("Number of Columns:" + IntToStr(reader->ColumnCount) +
			"\n").c_str());

		// display the list of records
		while (reader->Next()) {
			printf((reader->Value[reader->GetOrdinal("COUNTRY")]->GetAnsiString
				() + "\n").c_str());
		}

		printf("====================================================\n");

		conn->CommitFreeAndNil(transaction);
	}

	Sleep(5000);
	return 0;
}

Before you run this code, make sure you have the dbExpress alias EMPLOYEE setup to connect into the EMPLOYEE.GDB database and the InterBase client installed, if everything is ok just compile and run the program on Windows and Mac, the following image shows this application running on Mac.

There are few things you need to be aware when deploying and running this kind of application on Mac; on my following post I will explain everything about that.

For now we’ve learned how to use DBX Framework and make the application to compile and run on Windows and Mac.

You can download the source code from here or just update your local RAD Studio XE2 samples folder from our RAD Studio SVN repository.

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

Merry Christmas and a fantastic 2012 to everybody

Andreano Lanusse — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 09:32:17 +0000

It’s Christmas, a special day to all of us and the time to have our families together and celebrate.

To all my blog readers Merry Christmas!!

In a few days starts a new year, and now is time to review our achievements, mistakes and successes in 2011, make plans to improve, set new goals and be ready to achieve all of them in 2012.

I wish you a prosperous new year and in 2012 you can have the most amazing year of your life.

Regards,
Andreano Lanusse

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

Android apps connected to C++Builder DataSnap Server

Andreano Lanusse — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:48:16 +0000

As part of the 31 days of RAD Studio XE2 Tutorials, in today’s video I’m showing how you can create DataSnap REST Server in C++Builder, expose server methods and call them from an Android application. The video shows all the steps to create the server and the Android application.

This is a short recap of the video.

The first server method called InsertCountry, connect on my InterBase database and add a new record to the Country table, see the implementation below:

bool TServerMethods1::InsertCountry(String country, String currency,
	String &error) {
	TDBXCommand *comm;

	bool result = false;
	DbConn->Open();
	comm = DbConn->DBXConnection->CreateCommand();
	comm->CommandType = TDBXCommandTypes_DbxSQL;

	TVarRec vr[] = {country, currency};
	comm->Text =
		Format("Insert Into Country (COUNTRY, CURRENCY) Values ( '%s', '%s')", vr, 2);

	if (!comm->IsPrepared) {
		comm->Prepare();
	}

	try {
		comm->ExecuteUpdate();
		result = true;

	}
	catch (Exception* e) {
		error = e->Message;
	}
	delete comm;
	return result;

}

The following code represents the GetCountries implementation.

TDBXReader* TServerMethods1::GetCountries() {

	TDBXCommand *comm;

	try {
		DbConn->Open();
		comm = DbConn->DBXConnection->CreateCommand();
		comm->CommandType = TDBXCommandTypes_DbxSQL;
		comm->Text = "Select * from Country";

		if (!comm->IsPrepared) {
			comm->Prepare();
		}
		return comm->ExecuteQuery();
	}
	catch (Exception* e) {
		return NULL;
	}
}

The next step is to create the proxy class for Android using the DataSnap connectors, which is a new feature in C++Builder XE2. The generation can be done through command line or via HTTP request on your DataSnap server, and in the video I’m showing how to do that.

	private DSRESTConnection getConnection() {
		DSRESTConnection conn = new DSRESTConnection();
		conn.setHost("192.168.254.128");
		conn.setPort(8080);
		return conn;
	}

Now, let’s take a look and see how to execute the server methods, starting with the InsertCountry method as you can see in the following code.

protected void Insert() {

	DSRESTConnection conn = getConnection();

	TServerMethods1 sm = new TServerMethods1(conn);

	try {
		InsertCountryReturns ret;
		ret = sm.InsertCountry(editCountry.getText().toString(), editCurrency.getText().toString(), "");

		if ( ! ret.returnValue ) {
			System.out.println(ret.error);
		}

	} catch (DBXException e) {
		e.printStackTrace();
	}

	// Hide keyboard
	InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager)getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
	imm.hideSoftInputFromWindow(editCountry.getWindowToken(),0);

}

The next method is GetCountries. We start as before by getting the DSRESTConnection instance. The GetCountries method returns a DBXReader and the way we work with the DBXReader class in Java is very similar the way we work in C++, use the Next method to interact through the result, and getValue/GetAsXXXXX to get the column value. See the following code:

protected void Refresh() {

	DSRESTConnection conn = getConnection();

	TServerMethods1 sm = new TServerMethods1(conn);

	TDBXReader reader;
	try {
		reader = sm.GetCountries();

		ArrayList COUNTRIES = new ArrayList();

		while (reader.next()) {
			COUNTRIES.add(reader.getValue("COUNTRY").GetAsString());
		}

		// Add the COUNTRIES array in to the list view
		list.setAdapter(new ArrayAdapter(this, android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1, COUNTRIES));

	} catch (DBXException e) {
		e.printStackTrace();
	}

}

This is just a short tutorial explaining how to use DataSnap Connector with Android, take some time and watch the video where I’m going through more details.

The source code is available for download here and download the video from here.

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

It’s time to move on

Andreano Lanusse — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 06:31:18 +0000

Hi everyone, there are certain things we cannot let go and need to be mention. During the whole year I try to keep my blog posts about software development and other related technologies, but this time I need to mention what is going on here at Embarcadero. Upgrading to Delphi XE2, C++Builder XE2 or RAD Studio XE2 by December 30, 2011, you can get up to $2,935 (USD) in additional tools free! Also you are eligible to take one Delphi Developer Certification test free of charge.

Buy Delphi, C++Builder or RAD Studio XE2…	And receive the following FREE!!!
Professional edition	Rapid SQL XE2 – FREE! FastCube – FREE! One Delphi Developer Certification – FREE!
Enterprise edition	Rapid SQL XE2 – FREE! FastCube – FREE! DB Optimizer – FREE! One Delphi Developer Certification – FREE!
Architect edition	Rapid SQL XE2 – FREE! FastCube – FREE! DB Optimizer – FREE! DB Change Manager – FREE! One Delphi Developer Certification – FREE!

Recently I published the White Paper “Reasons to Migrate to Delphi XE2 | What you might have missed since Delphi 7″ and can help you to decide to upgrade to XE2.

Remember, this offer expire on December 30, 2011 and you can have more information here.

It’s time to move on

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

700 Delphi Developers at Delphi Conference Brazil

Andreano Lanusse — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:43:51 +0000

We are so excited here in Brazil at Delphi Conference 2011, around 700 Delphi Developers learning about all the great stuffs in Delphi.

David, Jim and I are here at the Conference talking with customers, community members and our partners.

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

White Paper: Reasons to Migrate to Delphi XE2 | What you might have missed since Delphi 7

Andreano Lanusse — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 23:16:39 +0000

If you still using Delphi 7 or past versions, I highly recommend you to reserve sometime to read this article. Delphi has really grown with some truly cool things getting added in the time since the Delphi 7.

This article gives a few good reasons to migrate, along with an overview of all the new features added to Delphi product releases since version 7, where Delphi was an IDE to build Windows 32-bit applications and became an IDE for Windows 64-bit, Mac and iOS development.

If you already read my article “Reasons to migrate from Delphi 7 to Delphi 2009″ or “Reasons to migrate to Delphi XE”, this is the updated version including Delphi 2010, XE and XE2 new features.

I would like to remind you that migrating to Delphi XE2 gives you access to earlier versions at no extra cost. For example buying Delphi XE2 also gets you Delphi 7, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010 and Delphi XE.

I hope this article answer all of your question, any additional question let us know how.

Article download.

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development

Bye Bye Embarcadero

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