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RE: A zope fear...
by George Runyan 08 Mar '00

08 Mar '00

have you figured out a way to move through the ZODB for a certain type of object? and then manipulate it in the way you need? I'm having this same concern from a project right now -- they are scared to put content in ZOPE because if we move to another content manager- we may not be able to get the data out (please point me to info). your secondary question is just as valid: versioning lingo in zope is not versioning as in source versioning but a 'temporary lock' on files. things look differently in/outside of versions. thats versioning now. how about retaining 'versions' of a website (I think vignette does this) - so I can call (if I had diskspace and *WANTED* to) my website and say, "what did the frontpage look like last month?, last week?, two days ago?" <- anyone worked with this, because this is what is typically referred to as 'versioning' (I believe). thanks, george runyan grunyan(a)emerging.com

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structured text
by srl 08 Mar '00

08 Mar '00

Hi all. I've read the Structured Text HOWTO but I'm still having trouble. I have a DTML Dccument, stx_about that looks something like: ---- This is my document. - bullet1 - Bullet2 ----- I'm including that in another DTML Document, about, that looks like: ----- <dtml-var standard_html_header> <dtml-var stx_about fmt=structured-text> <dtml-var standard_html_footer> ----- but the text isn't coming out formatted. What am I missing? I've tried many different variants of formatting, with and without blank spaces inserted between different elements. Please CC replies to me privately, as I'm not currently subscribed to the list. Thanks. srl

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Re: [Zope] Syntax for getting property sheet
by Jon Prettyman 08 Mar '00

08 Mar '00

Ahh.... I think I managed to come up with something like this but I left off the mapping attribute on the dtml-in and was getting some type of error I couldn't interpret. I'll give this a shot later tonight. -Jon Tres Seaver <tseaver(a)palladion.com> writes: > Jon Prettyman <jprettyman(a)acm.org> wrote: > > > > If I have a ZClass with a property sheet called 'Info', how can I get > > access to the sheet when I DON'T have an instance of that ZClass to > > work with. > > > > Specifically, I want an ADD form for my ZClass that has an ID field > > and a dynamically generated section containing all the properties from > > 'Info' all on ONE from. I can't seem to figure out how to dynamically > > generate the property section without an instance to work with. > > > <dtml-with "manage_addProduct[ 'MyProduct' ]">  > <dtml-in "MyZClass.propertysheets.Info.propertyMap()" mapping> >  > </dtml-in> > </dtml-with> > > -- > ========================================================= > Tres Seaver tseaver(a)palladion.com 713-523-6582 > Palladion Software http://www.palladion.com

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Re: [Zope] Syntax for getting property sheet
by Tres Seaver 08 Mar '00

08 Mar '00

Jon Prettyman <jprettyman(a)acm.org> wrote: > > If I have a ZClass with a property sheet called 'Info', how can I get > access to the sheet when I DON'T have an instance of that ZClass to > work with. > > Specifically, I want an ADD form for my ZClass that has an ID field > and a dynamically generated section containing all the properties from > 'Info' all on ONE from. I can't seem to figure out how to dynamically > generate the property section without an instance to work with. <dtml-with "manage_addProduct[ 'MyProduct' ]">  <dtml-in "MyZClass.propertysheets.Info.propertyMap()" mapping>  </dtml-in> </dtml-with> -- ========================================================= Tres Seaver tseaver(a)palladion.com 713-523-6582 Palladion Software http://www.palladion.com

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ZODB packing problem
by George Runyan 07 Mar '00

07 Mar '00

when I try to pack my ZODB I get: Error Type: KeyError Error Value: Traceback (innermost last): File /home/zope/Zope2/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 214, in publish_module File /home/zope/Zope2/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 179, in publish File /home/zope/Zope2/lib/python/Zope/__init__.py, line 202, in zpublisher_exception_hook (Object: Fake) File /home/zope/Zope2/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 165, in publish File /home/zope/Zope2/lib/python/ZPublisher/mapply.py, line 160, in mapply (Object: manage_pack) File /home/zope/Zope2/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 102, in call_object (Object: manage_pack) File /home/zope/Zope2/lib/python/App/ApplicationManager.py, line 338, in manage_pack (Object: ElementWithAttributes) File /home/zope/Zope2/lib/python/ZODB/DB.py, line 522, in pack File /home/zope/Zope2/lib/python/ZODB/FileStorage.py, line 1123, in pack (Object: /home/zope/Zope2/var/Data.fs)KeyError: (see above) my ZODB doesnt pack, it remains 50.6M and after this error its still usable (thank god). now, is there any documentation on how to fix this? when I search for 'ZODB' I get a useless 341 items returned. 'ZODB troubleshooting' I get 355 items. :( can someone point me to resources or previous discussions? please help, george runyan grunyan(a)emerging.com

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Property Sheet Question
by James W. Howe 07 Mar '00

07 Mar '00

I'm defining a property sheet for a new ZClass object. I want to define a property which is collection of items (in my current case it's strings, but conceptually it could be something else). When a new instance is created (or edited), I want the user to be able to specify 0 or more items. Is there a property type which supports this? What, for example, are "lists" and "tokens" and how do you make use of them? In the particular case that I'm working on, I want a user to be able to enter one or more e-mail addresses and one or more urls. At some point I will want to iterate over the e-mail addresses, or iterate over the urls when I construct a view for this object. Any tips or insights on this subject would be appreciated. Thanks. James W. Howe mailto:jwh@allencreek.com Allen Creek Software, Inc. pgpkey: http://ic.net/~jwh/pgpkey.html Ann Arbor, MI 48103

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formatting a date string
by Graham Chiu 07 Mar '00

07 Mar '00

I'm trying to convert a string from 2000/12/31 ( which is the format a date string is returned by a sql query ) to 31-DEC-2000 which is the format I need to enter date values into the database. I figured I need to index into 'JANFEBMARAPR.... ' Now m_date is '2000/12/31', so I need to convert the 12 to an integer. but <dtml-call "REQUEST.set('month',_.string.atoi(m_date[5:7],10))"> gives me a null value for month. ------- Regards, Graham Chiu gchiu<at>compkarori.co.nz http://www.compkarori.com/dynamo - The Homebuilt Dynamo http://www.compkarori.com/dbase - The dBase bulletin

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RE: [Zope] Zope needs this (and Dynamo has it)
by Alexander Staubo 07 Mar '00

07 Mar '00

And here follows part two of my follow-up. (I'm all thumbs today -- why is Alt+S so damn accessible on a PC keyboard? ;-) > From: Thomas Stenhaug [mailto:thomas@src.no] > Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2000 2:34 PM > To: Alexander Staubo > Cc: Zope Mailing List (E-mail) > Subject: Re: [Zope] Zope needs this (and Dynamo has it) > > | This situation has nothing to do with open vs. closed, either. Just > | like Zope we're talking about proprietary (as opposed to standarized > | -- DTML may be open, but it's still proprietary) > > I don't quite grok what "the situation" is referring to, Read the preceding paragraph, about Java and the "cost of training a person in the arts of Zope". >but I think > you're wrong here, or at least mistaken regarding the meaning of > "proprietary". Proprietary, according to Merriam-Webster, means this: > > [cut from Merriam-Webster] > Function: adjective > Etymology: Late Latin proprietarius, from Latin proprietas property -- > more at PROPERTY > Date: 1589 > 1 : of, relating to, or characteristic of a proprietor > <proprietary rights> > 2 : used, made, or marketed by one having the exclusive legal right > <a proprietary process> > 3 : privately owned and managed and run as a profit-making > organization <a proprietary clinic> > [/] I mean proprietary as being controlled by a private party -- owned, in a very liberal sense -- as opposed to being standarized. XML is not proprietary. DTML and Java are. I'm not as knowledge about IP laws as I would like to be, so I can't really defend my use of this word or whether DTML is an intellectual property of Digital Creations. Perhaps somebody else more suited to the task could clarify. > [...] > | and Zope, despite its many powerful features, is not big enough for > | truly big things. > | > | This is a two-part problem. The first part is that Zope's bullshit > | factor is too low; > [...] > | We tech people know better, we know a shiny surface tells us nothing > | about the engine underneath, but we tech people are not holding the > | crucial component -- those big brown bags of money. > > I'm not sure if I agree it's a problem, then, that Zope lacks in the > big-department. :-) If the suits in managements (assuming you work in such a place) tell you to go learn Dynamo because that's what they want to use, wouldn't you say it's a problem? > | [under Zope's surface] lies a powerful engine with scalability > | problems. > > What part of Zope's engine are you referring to here? Do you mean > Python in general, are some specific part? Like ZODB? I definitely believe that Python is Zope's largest problem right now. It's also, from a technical point of view, one of it's biggest assets -- Zope is becoming the killer application of Python, and might eventually become the driving force to evolve Python, which is, I believe, suffering from draught into the contributor department. Skilled developers aren't flocking to Python to make it faster. Not right now, anyway. My hope is that Zope will change this, because Python has possibly one of the slowest interpreters on earth. Python zealots -- and there is such a beast -- will tell you that Python's performance is less of a matter because what you sacrifice in speed you gain in power, ie. computational expressiveness through a high-level, dynamic language. For an example of a good, Python-like, dynamic language that is also very fast, take a look at Dylan. In current implementations, Dylan is not interpreted but rather compiled to native code, but in theory there is nothing stopping anyone from writing a highly efficient Dylan interpreter. Dylan's magic comes from its use of type hints, a system which I had recognized as likely pivotal to improving Python's interpreter long before I knew of Dylan. In Dylan, specifying a variable's type is optional. When omitted, the Dylan compiler will usually be able to infer the type from what you do with the variable (ie., it sees you're assigning an integer to it; hence it can assume that, for at least a stretch of execution, the variable remains an integer). When you explicitly declare a variable's type, Dylan applies the necessary code optimizations (such as using tight integer maths or string copying) as well as static type checking. In Python, variables can hold virtually anything, and this incurs a huge amount of checks. Just imagine -- while Zope is running, thousands and thousands of the same little checks are performed continuously, over and over again, amounting to no uncertain overhead. Python's biggest overhead comes from its dynamism -- the dynamic typing, as explained, combined the object allocation system: most things is an object, so a lot of objects are constantly spawned and torn down, often in rapid succession because the compiler/interpreter can make few hard analyses of when stuff is needed. Python also has a high function-call overhead. > | So far the only way to scale properly with Zope is a combination of > | a load-balancing clustering system (eg., TurboLinux' TurboCluster > | Server, which I can personally vouch for -- brilliant stuff -- or > | Linux Virtual Server) with Digital Creations' ZEO, of which I've > | only read about. > > I actually thought of ZEO as a very nice way to scale Zope. I agree. > | There are Zope sites out there that are suffering scalability > | problems (I won't mention specifics, other than that the project I'm > | involved in is one of them). > > It would be very much appreciated if you could share some specifics. No. Ask around, do some research. Ask Digital Creations -- they probably know of a few, although I'm guessing that they might feel it would hurt their reputation to tell. Many companies using Zope might not want to tell you because it would hurt their position, especially if they're public companies. Here's one specific case that I'm personally struggling with. I have a page that returns a large number of dynamic database results in a relatively simple table. The results are first munged by a small Python script. This stuff is slow. Internally, as far as I can determine (through shallow study of the database code), Zope allocates a row object for every row you access -- even if the row has been returned earlier on. Zope has a 1-row cache for cases when you repeatedly ask for the same row in succession. Zope also has a row cache that is useful for static result sets. Yet, for dynamic result sets, the processing overhead is huge. The overhead isn't so higher than any other overhead in other areas in Zope, but it's especially painful here, because it affects the generation time of a single page, whereas other kinds of overhead are more evenly distributed across multiple pages and multiple users. > [...] > | As far as pollution goes, assuming Zope exports the appropriate data > | -- in whatever form -- then support for > | performance/monitoring/management APIs such as SNMP, PCP, WBEM, and > | to a lesser extent PDH, aren't difficult to isolate into add-on > | products. > > You are right about that, and I think that's a better way to provide > such support, rather then building specific support for any of them > into Zope. Exactly. However, the necessary counters must be built into Zope at some point, and exposed through a common (XML? Python/XML-RPC?) API. Then we could attach publishers for SNMP, HTML, XML, whatever. Which reminds me. Does Zope have a mechanism for extending the Control_Panel namespace other than through the Product sub-folder? I'm too lazy to check, and I don't remember if this was ever discussed. -- Alexander Staubo http://alex.mop.no/ "`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" --Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_

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manage_exportObject
by Daniel G. Rusch 07 Mar '00

07 Mar '00

Now I am desperate, this is the fourth posting and still only one reply. Any thoughts no matter how far fetched would be overwhelmingly appreciated. Does anyone know how to export an object (Folder or such) from outside of the Folder that contains the item to be exported without hard coding the path. In other words I would like to be able to have a user interface which would allow a person, with an export role, to be able to enter a list of fully qualified Items to be exported. Consider: FolderA FolderB ItemToExport I can export ItemToExport from FolderA by calling: <dtml-with "FolderA.FolderB"> <dtml-call "manage_exportObject(id='ItemToExport')"> </dtml-with> but I don't want the FolderA.FolderB to be hard coded. I would like it to be a var that I pass into the method. Something like: <dtml-with FullPath> what should the syntax be. Thanks,

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Syntax for getting property sheet
by Jon Prettyman 07 Mar '00

07 Mar '00

If I have a ZClass with a property sheet called 'Info', how can I get access to the sheet when I DON'T have an instance of that ZClass to work with. Specifically, I want an ADD form for my ZClass that has an ID field and a dynamically generated section containing all the properties from 'Info' all on ONE from. I can't seem to figure out how to dynamically generate the property section without an instance to work with. -Jon

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