In order to fix code many a times one needs to search for terms, function names, defect/case ID's etc in SQR/SQC/INC (henceforth referred to as SQR files) files.

TextPad allows one to search thorough folders containing files having certain terms (e.g a defect ID or a case number) which is suspected to be related to a bug. However this process is often very slow as TextPad needs to open each and every file one by one and parse through it.

If there was a way by which we could index all terms in SQR files and store them upfront the amount of time required to search problem areas in SQR's and fix them could be drastically reduced.

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Interfacing Java with Microsoft Excel has always been a pain for software engineers.

The Apache foundation came out wit POI a Java API To Access Microsoft Format Files but it had its own limitations and the learning curve was a bit steep.

While looking for other ready made libraries I came across "jexcel". Its a simple library which can do quite a bit for its size. Its very easy to use and can manipulate existing excel files having formatted information as well as create new files with custom information and formats based on pure coding or a template.

If your existing libraries or custom developed tool does not do its job or does not do its job well I highly recommend giving this a shot.

Also check out http://jexcelapi.sourceforge.net/ and http://www.andykhan.com/jexcelapi/tutorial.html for a quick tutorial on how to use it.

An web development requires a server configuration.

If the configuration also involves a database server it adds up to the complexity of getting one cofigured to work with your web server.

XAMPP to the rescue.

XAMPP supports MySql, PHP as well as Perl. Its similar to the Wamp Server but I personally had some problems with Wamp. XAMPP on the other hand was pretty simple and worked without any problems. I use it very often when I need to continue with my PHP development pet projects and carry it along in my thumb drive wherever I go.

Yes I know there are numerous articles and forums out there which talk about this.

Why am I writing about this again?

That's because there is still some doubt out there on how to get PHP to work with Lighty.

In this blog post I would be providing the configuration files as well for Lighty and PHP whcih is missing in all the forms and general discussions out there. This would help folks get started faster.

You can download the files here:-
PHP.ini, lighttpd-inc.conf

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If you are wondering what Object Types are they are nothing but your usual objects that you create through the application designer or the PIA.

You might be wondering okay so why am I writing a blog on this.

Well here's why. Have you ever wondered how PeopleSoft stores the records, fields, pages, componets etc in the database. In an earlier blog I had mentioned about where PeopleSoft stores all your projects and objects that belong to your project.

Object Types in the peoplesoft are stored as numbers where each number stands for a certain object.

After snooping around in the database as well as google I have finally managed to collate a list of almost all the object types that are generally used.

The list is available here .

More often than not I had situations where I needed to literally step through the application engine looking at the sections and steps that got exected under differnet conditions just to confirm if the logic applied to build the Application Engine (AE) was right or wrong.

So here are the steps and parameters I use to do just.

First, you need to set PSAE.exe which actually initiates your AE in your environment variables. I am assuming you are using Windows XP.

How would you set the path to point to the folder which houses PSAE?

1. Right Click on My Computer on your desktop and then click on Properties.
2. Click on the Advanced tab.
3. Click on Environment Variables.
4. Under System Variables look for Path.
5. Double Click that entry and append (I said append not overwrite) the folder path which has PSAE. On my system I had the executable under " C:\PT8.46\bin\client\winx86 ".

Now that you have everything setup to debug your application engine open the command prompt.
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Many a times I have heard people new to PeopleSoft say that one cannot run an application engine using the same Run control ID. I would like to say to them that is it B.S .

The reason why an application engine often does not run with the same run control id is that a previous instance of the same application engine might have gone to error with the same run control id.

If at all this happens and you still want to run the application engine it can be done through the command line if all else fails.

I had always wondered how does peoplesoft store projects created through the application designer.

Here I was with an interesting problem. So how did I go about finding out which are the tables where PeopleSoft stores all its projects?

Well, in my current assignment almost all computers have a local instance of PeopleSoft Vanilla installed. This vanilla instance runs on an SQL Server Database. SQL Server...yuppie good news for me. Why you might ask?

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