For the majority of us who have grown accustomed to a Windows environment over the years, Linux can seem like another world. In essence, Linux is a free open-source operating system that has gained increasing popularity since its release in 1991. Linux is based on the whole Unix ecosystem of operating systems that grew out of Bell Laboratories in the early 1970s. Linux has been around for almost 25 years and grew immensely in the late 1990s and early 2000s when it became associated with the LAMP web development stack; Linux stands for the ‘L’ in the acronym of popular tools, along with Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python.

The main difference that …

Planning out my year, I decided to take the Oracle OCP and MySQL OCP exams. I checked for review books and was pleasantly surprised to find the soon to be released OCP MySQL Database Administrator Exam Guide (Exam 1Z0-883). However, I noticed that the book was actually prepared for the obsolete and discountinued Exams 1Z0-870, 1Z0-873, and 1Z0-874. As it turns out, Steve O’Hearn has informed me that there isn’t a book and that the posting in Amazon.com is in error.

One of my students requested an option to the bash shell. It was interesting to hear that he wanted me to instal the zsh in my Fedora image. There’s only one book that I’m aware of that’s been published on the Z Shell, and it is From Bash to Z Shell.

This post shows how to add the zsh to my Fedora image because I already release a new one for the term without the zsh shell. You use the yum utility as the root user to install the zsh library:

yum …

Last week I posted how to configure and test Ruby and MySQL. Somebody asked me how to handle a dynamic list of columns. So, here’s a quick little program to show you how to read the dynamic list of column:

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require 'rubygems'
require 'mysql'
 
# Begin block.
begin
  # Create a new connection resource.
  db = Mysql.new('localhost','student','student','studentdb')
 
  # Create a result set.
  rs = db.query('SELECT item_title, item_rating FROM item')
  # Read through the result set hash.
  rs.each do | row |
    out = ""
    i = 0
    while i < db.field_count
      # Check if not last column.
      if i < db.field_count - 1
        out += "#{row[i]}, "
      else
        out += "#{row[i]}" …

It turns out that configuring Perl wasn’t the last step for my student instance. It appears that I neglected to configure my student instance to support Java connectivity to MySQL. This post reviews the configuration of Java to run programs against MySQL. It also covers the new syntax on how you register a DriverManager, and avoid Java compilation errors with the older syntax.

In prior posts, I’ve shown how to use Perl , PHP, Python, and Ruby languages to query a MySQL database on Linux.

You need to install the Open JDK libraries …

Sometimes trying to keep a post short and to the point raises other questions. Clearly, my Python-MySQL Program post over the weekend did raise a question. They were extending the query example and encountered this error:

      TypeError: range() integer end argument expected, got tuple.

That should be a straight forward error message because of two things. First, the Python built-in range() function manages a range of numbers. Second, the row returned from a cursor is actually a tuple (from relational algebra), and it may contain non-numeric data like strings and dates.

The reader was trying to dynamically navigate the number of columns in a row by using the …

Configuring Perl to work with MySQL is the last part creating a complete Fedora Linux LAMP stack for my students. Perl is already installed on Fedora Linux.

I’ve also shown how to use PHP, Python, and Ruby languages to query a MySQL database on Linux. After installing this additional Perl DBI library, my students will have the opportunity to choose how they implement their LAMP solution.

You can find the Perl version with the following version.pl program:

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#!/usr/bin/perl -w
 
# Print the version.
print "Perl ".$]."\n";

This post works through the Python configuration of Fedora instance, and continues the configuration of my LAMP VMware instance. It covers how you add the MySQL-python libraries to the Fedora instance, and provides the students with one more language opportunity for their capstone lab in the database class.

A standard Fedora Linux distribution installs Python 2.7 by default. Unfortunately, the MySQL-python library isn’t installed by default. You can verify the Python version by writing and running the following version.py program before installing the MySQL-python library:

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# Import sys library.
import sys
 
# Print the Python version.
print sys.version

You can run the version.py program dynamically like this from the current working directory:

After you install Ruby and build the Rails framework, you need to create the mysql gem. This blog post shows you how to create the mysql gem and how to write a simple Ruby program that queries the MySQL database.

The first step creates the mysql gem for Ruby programming:

yum install mysql

It should show you the following:

Fetching: mysql-2.9.1.gem (100%)
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
Successfully installed mysql-2.9.1
Parsing documentation for mysql-2.9.1
Installing ri documentation for mysql-2.9.1
Done installing documentation for mysql after 0 seconds
1 gem installed

After you install the mysql Ruby Gem, you can write and …

I use a Fedora 20 VM image to teach Oracle and MySQL technology. Last week, I expanded the Fedora VM image to support a full LAMP stack. This blog shows you how to install Ruby on Fedora and successfully generate the Rails gems.

Connect as the root user and use yum to install the libraries. My approach is by library or small groups. Naturally, you start with the ruby library.

yum install ruby

You will see the following:

Loaded plugins: langpacks, refresh-packagekit
mysql-connectors-community                                  | 2.5 kB  00:00     
mysql-tools-community                                       | 2.5 kB  00:00     
mysql56-community                                           | 2.5 kB  00:00     
pgdg93                                                      | 3.6 kB  00:00     
updates/20/x86_64/metalink …