I didn't have very many hours today, between coming in late from a doctor's appointment and leaving early for a weekend trip. But I've been making up hours this week in advance, and I'll make up the rest next week.

I looked through the replies to my Catalyst mailing list queries, and continued trying to debug my database stuff. I'm pretty confused by now. I did try to connect to Andy's database instead, but I'm even less sure of what I'm doing there (don't know the file path to the .db file, etc), so I'm going to leave it the way it was for now.

Someone did respond to my question in the Gentoo forums about running commands on startup. We finally got it worked out! I have to use the ~/.xprofile file. I also looked at /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc .

Notes for Monday:

• I have 4 hours to make up
• Check on Tuesday's schedule
• Handy command: "su -" instead of "su" -- it's safer
• Keep working on getting Catalyst running with the db model, with help from my thread on the mailing list (once I hear back).
• Look at "todo" list doc

In a previous post, I mentioned that I needed a way to limit a "select" statement without having to quit my mysql session whenever the results got too long. Someone sent me the following solution:

SELECT * 
  FROM foo
 LIMIT 0,50

This will definitely do what I need, although I still should research how to break a command without killing the session.

Most of my time today was spent going through tutorial materials that I was referred to to help me get up to speed on the Catalyst database stuff. I can't get the demonstration code to work, but it might be because we don't have something installed, and I think I can still learn a fair amount by looking through the materials.

I realized in the middle of the day that I hadn't turned in an application for something unrelated, so I clocked out for a couple of hours to get that done. Also, we have tomorrow off!

After I work through this tutorial, I'm going to take up an offer that someone on the mailing list made to me. He authored the module I'm working with, and he's willing to debug with me in chat. Very generous.

Notes for Wednesday:

• Make up time
• Keep going through tutorial. (Ready to start reading 4. Authentication, but need to replace its bad links. Notes are saved as "jun19")
• Don't forget to keep master todo list up to date
• Find out how to interrupt mysql command without killing the session
  

I arrived shortly before we left for the TigerPlace meeting. Dr. Skubic contacted Nate because we haven't seen him in two weeks; it turns out he's been sick!

I finished looking through the relevant parts of the Catalyst database tutorial. I contacted Brandon and set up an appointment to debug my usage of DBIx with Catalyst (tomorrow morning). To that end, I've created a tar file of the files I've been working with, stripped down to just the relevant ones, with database username and password removed. I did finally figure out how to scp files from the Catalyst machine to my own!

We unpacked several boxes of equipment that the University of Virginia sent us, and we sorted and inventoried everything, and I emailed Dr. Skubic the results.

Tomorrow:

• Check with Dr. Skubic before sending Brandon the tarball, just in case
• Be sure to send Brandon a short explanation along with the tarball - see txt file that I've started
• Keep trying to get my copy to compile. Perhaps experiment with Schema::Loader vs just Schema?
  
• Test the equipment we received, look at inventory issues, put it wherever Dr. Skubic would like it located
• See jun19 doc
• See todo doc

My chat with Brandon was short, but very productive. (I wasn't able to check before sending off the tarball, but I think it's OK.) It turns out I didn't have one of the plugins I needed, and he also found some basic syntax errors for me. He showed me how to check a plugin version, and I went and found out how to install the plugin I needed. I seem to have DBIx working now.

It would be good to upgrade some of my plugins, but I can't seem to get that to work. I use the "r" command in cpan to list what needs reinstalling, and then I install one of the modules listed, but it remains listed at the same (old) version in the list. I tried for a long time to fix this, but I'm just going to have to ask Nate to help me when he gets back. I did, however, upgrade the version of CPAN.

My next task on this project is to translate the existing SQL code into something that uses the DBIx stuff. I'm partway there. That is, I translated it as best I could, commented out some of the nastier stuff (to be figured out later), and it compiles, and the page even renders. It doesn't actually work, though. It would be really helpful if I could see the SQL code being generated for me. There should be a simple way to do that. Of course, I can't find it. I do get an error that tells me what part of my SQL statement doesn't work, but it'd be better if I could see the whole statement.

To do:

• Test the equipment we received, look at inventory issues (no need to relocate just yet)
• Find out how to view the generated SQL code - ask Brandon?
• Get my DBIx version of Nate's SQL code to work
• Get the advanced features to work
  
• Edit it to look less like rearranged SQL and more like it takes advantage of DBIx?
• Post the solution to my database thread question, for future newbs
• See jun19 doc
• Keep master todo list up to date

A breakthrough! I have finally figured out how to retrieve records from the database using these modules. This is what I spent most of my day on.

I found a way of viewing the SQL code that is generated by a query, but I may not use that after all. I also found (was referred to) a DBIx::Class mailing list, and I pulled all the archives into one text file for searching. I ended up dumping my big, complicated query and starting from the very basics - getting an example to work, and building up towards the big, complex query little by little. I can now select a range of records based on criteria (<, >, =) for each field, and I can output the values for an individual row. I might even be able to get that whole demo page and graph running on this model by the end of Monday.

We looked at testing the new equipment, but discovered that we need Nate's expertise for that.

Things for Monday:

• Keep building up the complexity of my DBIx query, until I can convert the dbixdemo page to using this DBIx class completely. (See "jun23 cat dbix debug" for current progress.)
• Post the solution to my DBIx questions.
• See jun19 doc - I've started bookmarking action items, and I'm as far as "6. Debugging."
• If I finish all that, look at master todo list
• Start DMP progress report, and check with Dr. Skubic on that

Well, it's the end of my 5th week. I'm halfway done.