AltME groups: search

something like a altme:// protocol loadable within rebol, similar 
to the mySql protocol by Nenad, would be really effective.  reading 
your post from a file browser and saving new posts to it from ANY 
rebol app.    :-)

A real-world example of this is.. someone going to a party.

The party is in full-swing and the newcomer would venture from group-discussion 
to group-discussion.

i.e. Now that I am at the party, I know there is repeated 'hot discussions' 
going on with that group over there (altMe).. while the group in 
the corner (mysql) isn't talking.. they are just eating their chips 
and sitting quietly.

And to parallel this.. when I join AltMe for the day.. I would not 
be flagged of old-conversations that happened while I was logged 
off.. I would only be flagged of conversations that are happening 
since I logged on.

Now, that doesn't keep me from going to those other groups and seeing 
the messages that have been posted while I was logged off, it just 
keeps me in touch with the party.

unless it also has the letters mysql  ;-)

basically the scripts interface to the mysql db via custom rebol 
values

I made a function for this to interface MySQL:

keyed: func [keys [block!] values [block!] /local out] [
  out: copy []
  if not any [empty? keys empty? values] [
    repeat i length? keys [
      insert tail out reduce [

        keys/:i either block? first values [values/1/:i][values/:i]
      ]
    ]
  ]
  out
]

can someone tell me if they are also getting erratic behavior from 
the (EXCELLENT!) mySql Client from DocKimbel ?

it gives me an access denied error, from the mysql server, yet I 
am right in the midst of a heavy bunch of requests...

we are using v4 of mySql ...

I was thinking there might be a timeout value which is set a little 
too short, but I am such a neophyte when it comes to tweaking ports 
and with mySql in general...

hum, I am calling  wait  0.01  pretty often within the script to 
allow the asynchronous rebol core some breathing time which REALLY 
rocks btw... scanning multiple dirs, while letting the UI and mySql 
to work at the same time , I'd not be able to get it running so easily 
in any other language.... :-)

CGI are slow, I'm not sure that you can easily overload a MySQL server 
that way. Did anyone experienced such issues (access deny errors) 
from CGI ?

Jaime: i have functions to do that, you'll find them in the mysql-wrapper.r 
script that comes with mysql-protocol.r

Like Gabriele, I have sometimes error with CGI connecting MySql but 
the server seems to not be loaded.

I am having problems connecting to mysql on windows XP. The error 
message I get is "Client does not support authentication protocol". 
I'm using localhost as the host and have granted all priviliges for 
['user''-:-'localhost'']  identified by ''password' .... etc. I'm used 
to linux, and it''s been

hmm.. and you are using Mysql-prot.r ?

(or whatever the Rebol mysql protocol is called)?

There are some gotchas using 'localhost'. Now on my linux machine, 
when I changed my I.P. from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.6, I then had 
to connect using my machine's hostname (which was "linus") . If I 
attempt to connect using this machine's hostname (lucy) I get : MYSQL 
ERROR 1045 : Access denied for user ['tim'-:-'lucy'] (using password: 
YES). And I *have* also granted privileges to [tim-:-lucy] indentified 
by 'password''

Tim: MySQL 4.1 uses a new encryption method for user passwords, try 
add a new user assigning the password with the function OLD_PASSWORD('pass') 
rather than PASSWORD('pass'), and attempt   open mysql:// ... etc. 
 with the new user. Hope this helps.

I'm going to try it with the mysql-protocol module that I am using 
on my desktop. Just a minute...

yes gabriele, it works fine for this ->  char *mysql_info(MYSQL *mysql) 
 points to a char, but this -> MYSQL_RES *mysql_list_tables(MYSQL 
*mysql, const char *wild) delivers the integer pointer again as string. 
I know I have to provid a struct! which will be filled by passing 
the pointer to the routine but can I pass just a empty block instead 
a struct! ?, or better pass the recieved integer pointer later to 
a block ?

i think you should declare the return value as a struct. how is MYSQL_RES 
defined?

Dummy question: is it possible to insert more than one SQL statement 
in one time ?
ie:

insert mysql-db {INSERT INTO table VALUES (1, "USA"); INSERT INTO 
table VALUES (2, "FRANCE"); INSERT INTO table VALUES (3, "ITALY")}

This works with some SQLs -- not trie dit with mySQL
 INSERT INTO table
   select (1, "USA")
   union all  select (2, "FRANCE")
   union all  select (3, "ITALY")

According MySQL doc, I can use this syntax for INSERT :

But I can't do that for UPDATE !!

So I need to know it the Rebol MySql protocol allow to pass several 
SQL statements in one time.

Apologies on Insert -- I'd assumed from the fact you'd asked the 
question that MySQL did not support the Values syntax.


Update is trickier as you are potentially changing a whole load of 
values.

Best way is to have the update data in a 2nd table, and then select 
as appropriate.

This is the way I'd do it -- don't know if it'd work for mySQL (assumes 
product is identified by 'prod-code)
insert  ignore into Commands
             select * from products;

update commands 
    where not prod-code in 

         select prod-code  from product  where command.prod-code = products.prod-code
          set quantity = ????;

I think I mean 
   where prod-code in
not NOT in
(the code is not tested, and may not be possible in mySQL)

Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties is probably the best book for getting 
up to speed.

dunno if newer mysql supports subselects, but it didn't in the past

4.1 seems to support them. Dunno if they work though :-)
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/subqueries.html

I have a problem when the connection times out and mysql-protocol.r 
wants to reconnect. It looks like it hangs, but on closer inspection 
with trace/net on just gives an infinite amount of low-level reads 
of length 0 bytes.

I can close and reopen the connection, and it works again, but I 
can only do this 5-6 times before it refuses to connect to the mysql 
server. Is this a known problem?

But I'm not sure if it's not problem of the MySQL itself (for example 
some way how to awoid attacks

MySQL server version: 3.23.37

Tom: the select above is actually safe. MySQL keeps the last insert 
id on a per-connection basis

Hello, is there anyone working with Rebol Command and Mysql 4.1.x 
? It appears that the authentication protocol has changed and Rebol/Command 
can not connect to MySQL 4.1.x. But it works fine with MySql 4.0.x.

have you tried free mySQL driver from DocKimbel?

Is there any conclusion about DocKimbel's mySQL driver and 4.11 server 
release? Does it work or no? In terms of one project, where we exchange 
data, client agrees to our proposed way, only if we import data to 
their tables on their server. It is Debian linux, mySQL 4.11 or so, 
so before I produce some script and give it to them, I would like 
to ask if the problem of connection/authentication is resolved? Thanks 
a lot ....

Hmm, so noone uses mySQL here? :-)

btw - other site will use rebol plus mysql script in terms of Cron 
job - how should I launch it? I hope they know how to define Cron 
job, as I don't know ... should it be similar to CGI script? Or? 
Simply "cron script" calls something like \path\to\rebol\rebol \path\to\my-script\myscript.r? 
What arguments eventually? -s?

Hi Petr, 


Not sure if this is what you are asking about mySQL "Can I update 
particular fields (columns) in table?" but if you want to change 
a value you use SET.  e.g.  in mySQL protocol format


query: rejoin[{update logons set rs='}keyOrder{' where userName = 
'}cgi/userName{'}]
insert db reduce query

I have the new MySQL Version 5 Beta installed on my development Notebook 
(WinXP). I was devoloping a Script acessing a current Version 4.1 
of MySQL without any problems and i thought about continuing dev 
work at home. There i ran into an error saying that the autthetification 
protocol of the client is not supported and i should update my client, 
which is the mysql-protocol from DocKimble, when acessing the local 
version 5 Beta of MySQL. Is this a known problem and does anybody 
knows to work around this?? Does anybody know what changed to authenfication 
that is not supported by the protocol??

Re: MySQL Auth.   IIRC  http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/old-client.html
I think we used this option "Tell the server to use the older password 
hashing algorithm" and continued without a house call.  If that does 
not work, let me know and on Monday I will ask the programmer who 
did it what did work.

I use mySQL admin utility, which sets old-passwords item in my.ini 
file, yet Doc's mySQL driver does not work ... now I am at the end 
....

the trouble also is, remote site may not be willing to use old-fashioned 
passwords ... what then? No guru to adapt mySQL driver? Any pointers 
to new authentication methods?

Seems one can enable passwords on a per-user-base? search on the 
page: 
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR
-> ['some_user'-:-'some_host'] = OLD_PASSWORD('newpwd');

huh, ok. Finally can test ... while I have set old-passwords in my.ini, 
restarted service, it is not enough - so I installed mysql administrator 
app and changed user password, server probably needs to regenerate 
them to behave correctly ..

Here is something more: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/password-hashing.html

what is your common rebol syntax you use mySQL driver with? I find 
it a bit difficult to use Doc's block mode, as I have to provide 
it with exactly the same amount of question marks, as there is amount 
of columns in the table (talking of insert here)

does anyone use non-rebolish, but string mode (eg. using 'compose), 
with direct mySQL syntax? (which allows constructs as for e.g. insert 
into mytable (col1, col8, col9) values ("A", "B", "C") ... so you 
don't need to care about the rest of arguments for e.g.?

hmm,  maybe I am already decided, thanks for any input, but it seems 
to me easier to directly compose valid mySQL syntax, than to think 
how to overcome rebol block conversion syntax, as I can't know what 
cases Doc's driver is able to parse ...

This is related, I think, to my notes about VID and MySQL in the 
View section. In a test that we ran in 2004 we were able to load 
1,000,000 rows in under 30 minutes.  We did not investigate further 
but we thought we could improve this by running parallel loads and 
putting it on a real server instead of a laptop.  This volume was 
equal to the annual volume of  the transactions we were interested 
in so would represent a journal of everything that happened to this 
app as a keyed transaction in one year.   


From that 1,000,000 row database, we were able to create an HTML 
report based on some selected criteria in 2.5 seconds.  

All tests done with REBOL View using Doc's mySQL protocol.

I am reopening the issue of mySQL protocol not being able to connect 
to newer >= 4.11 mySQL version database. I decided to consider this 
task as being a proof if the community is, or is not able to effectively 
resort some issues, which clearly show as a show stopper for some 
rebollers (as can be seen on ml). If we are not able to effectively 
resolve this issue, then I have to ask - what actually are we able 
to sort?

Yesterday afternoon I spent investigating Doc's scheme, and here 
are my conclusions:


- The part of code responsible for password communication with the 
server is in the 'scrambler object. The function whish establishes 
connection with server is 'do-handshake


- rebol's mysql protocol seems to distinguish protocol version 9 
and 10, and I was not able to find out, what does it mean on mysql's 
side of things. It also seems to me, there is long-password item 
already in the stack, but dunno if related, it is just osme constant. 
Protocol version 9 and 10 use different hash functions and different 
crypt functions. I really don't know, where does DocKimbel find out 
how to implement those functions, maybe by looking into mySQL source, 
so I downloaded them


- to read more about passwords in mysql, go here - http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/password-hashing.html
. Maybe it is not protocol 9 and 10 related, as you may use old password 
scheme even with new databases. The difference is as follows - starting 
from mySQL 4.11, passwords are stored in 41 bytes wide field, whereas 
with older versions, it was 16bytes. New passwords always start with 
* (asterisk) char, to be easily distinguished ...


- how things might work? Mysql sends scrambled password, and Doc's 
scheme stores it in 'crypt-seed variable.  Data is being sent by 
the protocol by 'send-packet function, where for the password part, 
scrambler/scramble function is used, which calls crypt-v10 or crypt-v9, 
according to protocol versions. Those function use hash-v10(9), floor 
and other functions ...


I think that we somehow need to find out, how to compute hash for 
not 16bytes, but for those 41bytes ...

Now - sorry if I am breaking some licenses, but I will post some 
stuff to my website, and remove it once we are finished:

http://www.rebol.cz/mysql/mysql-protocol.r
http://www.rebol.cz/mysql/password.c

maybe this is better description:

The password is saved (in user.password) by using the PASSWORD() 
function in
  mysql.


  This is .c file because it's used in libmysqlclient, which is entirely 
  in C.
  (we need it to be portable to a variety of systems).
  Example:
    update user set password=PASSWORD("hello") where user="test"
  This saves a hashed number as a string in the password field.

  The new authentication is performed in following manner:

  SERVER:  public_seed=create_random_string()
           send(public_seed)

  CLIENT:  recv(public_seed)
           hash_stage1=sha1("password")
           hash_stage2=sha1(hash_stage1)
           reply=xor(hash_stage1, sha1(public_seed,hash_stage2)

           // this three steps are done in scramble() 

           send(reply)

     
  SERVER:  recv(reply)
           hash_stage1=xor(reply, sha1(public_seed,hash_stage2))
           candidate_hash2=sha1(hash_stage1)
           check(candidate_hash2==hash_stage2)

           // this three steps are done in check_scramble()

So - I did some homework here, but I am at my limits (well, maybe 
not, but I will be very slow from now on), whereas we have ppl knowing 
C here, and ppl who did some hashing etc. for Beer (Ladislav), so 
guys, if you find some 10 minutes of spare time, please at least 
try to give me some pointers here. As I said - the world is upgrading 
mySQL to 5.0 now, so 4.11 is older, not to mention 4.0.1 or 3.23. 
It is about having mysql free scheme for rebol, or not. And don't 
think every admin will be willing to set old-password parameter for 
his server, as this can be regarded a security risk ...

There must be quite a few rebol users using mysql.

I don't know any other language, which would not have mysql scheme 
....

I don't understand what do you mean here. I probably know, from its 
help, that it supports md5 and sha1, but dunno how to use such fact 
in regards to mysql scheme. Why doc coded his own functions then? 
Or is it just that older auth schemes did not use typical sha1 hashing?

Now - sorry if I am breaking some licenses, but I will post some 
stuff to my website, and remove it once we are finished:

http://www.rebol.cz/mysql/mysql-protocol.r
http://www.rebol.cz/mysql/password.c

maybe this is better description:

The password is saved (in user.password) by using the PASSWORD() 
function in
  mysql.


  This is .c file because it's used in libmysqlclient, which is entirely 
  in C.
  (we need it to be portable to a variety of systems).
  Example:
    update user set password=PASSWORD("hello") where user="test"
  This saves a hashed number as a string in the password field.

  The new authentication is performed in following manner:

  SERVER:  public_seed=create_random_string()
           send(public_seed)

  CLIENT:  recv(public_seed)
           hash_stage1=sha1("password")
           hash_stage2=sha1(hash_stage1)
           reply=xor(hash_stage1, sha1(public_seed,hash_stage2)

           // this three steps are done in scramble() 

           send(reply)

     
  SERVER:  recv(reply)
           hash_stage1=xor(reply, sha1(public_seed,hash_stage2))
           candidate_hash2=sha1(hash_stage1)
           check(candidate_hash2==hash_stage2)

           // this three steps are done in check_scramble()

Yes, we were caught by SourceForge's move from MySQL 3 to MySQL 4. 
After a month they just cut off the old functionality, so now we're 
forced to migrate in a hurry

However, the parts of the site that are not in MySQL are still functional

I need to prepare some installation instructions for our polish partner. 
I will do some scripts to access mySQL on their server, using rebol, 
but I will not have access to the site. So I want to be well prepared, 
so they don't get annoyed after writing them tens of times "try that, 
try this" etc. :-)

They use Debian. I have Fedora at home. What would I like to ask 
is - where to put rebol interpreter on Debian? Where to put things 
like user.r or mysql-protocol.r or whatever other script I produce 
to them? The path is almost always trouble for me. I e.g. start console 
and I have to define set-net once again, as it does not use my user.r 
settings etc. Any insights?

has latest beta core available shell access? I will not probably 
able to solve mySQL 4.0.1 charset conversions using mySQL commands, 
so I will use 'iconv utility .... need to convert by using externall 
tool, so I need shell access for that ...

well, it is really handy ... it is SQL, that is importand ... and 
it is completly portable - imagine having small apps, you just need 
cgi-bin site and you can have your rebol app wherever .... no need 
for admin to configure mysql for you, etc., I like it. For small 
to middle stuff it is pretty ok ...

I set up a connection to MySQL from linux using MyODBC drivers back 
in 2002.  I'm sure if you wanted to you could get an ODBC set up 
running that would allow you to use Firebird from Linux.

I know I had REBOL connecting to MySQL via ODBC on Linux...  I was 
playing with WINE heavily at the time though so I might have been 
running a windows version of REBOL on Linux to do it. ;-)

Sunanda, thanks. I have in fact done that before. I think what was 
really happening was that the files were not chmoded correctly. All 
is well now including mysql through Rebol (which I thought was going 
be very difficult to fix). Again thanks.

What I have found to be a problem is accessing MySQL accounts from 
client based rebol scripts. They seem to only allow server based 
access.

mysql: some hosts only allow socket access and not tcp access to 
mysql (because that's the default config for some distros.) but, 
that's something that they can enable without problems.

I have a rebol view app that I use to acces a MySQL database. I had 
it working  and then ,y ISP decided to add security and no longer 
allow MySQL access unless its a script on the server. Ofcourse they 
did not inform me and it took some time to track down the problem..

But  yes: load-balancer -> webserver(*) -> FastCGI(*) -> MySQL

I don't understand it a bit. I can understand webserver, fastcgi, 
mysql part, but what is that load-balancer part? Client side?

I want to access a mysql db via a cgi interface directly with a rebol 
client.


I have a cgi script  that accesses the db and prints the results 
which I can read with the client but is this the best method? Is 
there a way to send the data directly to the client as rebol blocks 
or do I need to essestialy parse a cgi built web page as I am doing?

I know I can use mysql-protocol to access mysql directly but that 
is not hat I mean as sometimes that is not possible/allowed by some 
isp's.

The ISP owns the mysql db .. and opens up some tables for you to 
use.  So, no, it's not possible unless you run your own Vm like as 
on Amazon or linode or slicehost or whatever.

The advantage over Vanilla is that changes can be rolled back using 
the mysql database ...

is there anything close to ruby rails wrt automatically defing MySQL 
CRUD operations ? I find rails really cool, something Rebol could 
easily do !!

in MySQL I for example use: "SET character_set_client = cp1250"

What's the current status of the postgresql driver   ?   Should one 
use mysql instead?

As for PostGress, IIRC the driver was in better state than the one 
of mySQL? It even used continual parsing. Doc said later on even 
mySQL driver will be rewritten that way, and maybe it already is, 
dunno.

Graham, Dock's Mysql driver run on eavy tasks without a hitch 8)

I'm just not sure that Mysql's license will eventually catch doc's 
work as well.

Doc,   PgSQL does not have same 'send-sql' and /flat options.   Is 
there a reason they can not parallel the mySQL use?

No particular reason, this driver wasn't much used by me or others, 
so I haven't work on it  as much as on the MySQL one. For SEND-SQL 
support with options, it should be quite easy to add IIRC (just a 
matter of copy/pasting some code from MySQL driver).

I am trying some of the code from mySQL and get a PgSQL error "** 
Script Error: Invalid argument: TABLE
** Where: forever
** Near: to integer! trim pos"

Thanks Doc.  I can work around that TABLE message using the pgAdmin. 
 The Send-SQL and /FLAT protocol updates work exactly the same as 
on MySQL for me.

not only that - it could be properly supported by sort/collation 
kind of functionality, as other environments do (mySQL). Rebol even 
does not use its system/locale in its own calendar ;-)

Jaime - e.g. what I need is quite simple - having app on Windows, 
I need to submit my data to mySQL data in Poland, so it needs to 
be translated to another charset .... (but IIRC it can be done on 
server, so I will hopefully manage it without rebol supporting unicode 
for now )

hmm, just looking at sources of mySQL and I can find pthreads are 
there, so they might use photothreads? Carl once wanted me to remind 
him of that. So Jaime, if you know libevent is considered for even 
loop, you might once again point Carl to http://www.sics.se/~adam/pt/
, but maybe he has already decided how to do such things properly 
for REBOL 3.0 :-)

OSX is not good for high performance serving, such as running MySQL. 
It's notoriously slow at creating threads. This doesn't affect desktop 
performance however.

After buying Sleepycat, Oracle tried to buy mySQL - it starts to 
be worryig :-)

http://news.com.com/Oracle+tried+to+buy+open-source+MySQL/2100-7344_3-6040197.html?tag=nefd.lede

mySQL AB buys company of one of Firebird authors - Jim Starkey .... 
Netfrastructure ... never heard about their "revolutionary" products 
... sounds like collaborative environment?


http://netfrastructure.com/main.nfs?a=netfraweb&l=;PAPERS;PAPER_NO='7'&t=drlWhitePapers


Jim was author of nextgen Firebird generation - called Vulcano or 
so ...

Hope it gets faster to 1.0.x then the mysql driver ;-)

Marteen: I'll add a small Database abstraction layer for RSP: so 
I'll include both mysql and pgsql drivers once this feature added.

Doc: I know, but I also read the RubyOnRails book where they measured 
all this. A database scales better, and for low usage the performance 
hit you tahe is little. Files/memory is faster but collapses pretty 
soon, MySQL runs with constant overhead (and little enough, I might 
add). It is more a question of balancing performance with different 
load scenarios.