See the example here: National Park Dorling Cartogram
You can get the source code on github.

The Get Utility is one of the smaller YUI modules. Despite its size, how and when to use it can be quite complicated. It is used with css and javascript files to provide progressive loading of functionality and cross-site data retrieval. Progressive loading is a technique to load resources as they are needed on the page and not before. Cross-site data retrieval is useful for creating mashups, it allows you to request third party data. Unlike normal ajax applications, security issues prevent you from using XMLHttpRequest to call third party APIs that are hosted on different domains. In order to use XMLHttpRequests you would need to setup a proxy server hosted on your website. The Get Utility avoids this by appending a script or link tag directly to the page to retrieve the resource. It has the advantage of being lightweight, but it could also be a security issue and you shouldn’t use it without understanding the risks. Be sure you trust the 3rd party APIs you are calling and you are not exposing users to malicious javascript.

Example: Get for cross-domain JSON

The following example is based on the “Using JSON with Yahoo! Web Services” callback examples, but uses the Get Utility to request the JSON data.

First, add the YUI source files to your webpage

The method for loading javascript with the Get Utility is script. It takes a URL location for a javascript resource. Script has an optional parameter for a callback function that is called once the resource is loaded. In the example, the callback onSuccess is called by Get when the javascript resource is loaded. This callback is different from the ws_results callback that is defined in the data request which is also called when the javascript is loaded.

function ws_results(obj) {
	alert(obj.ResultSet.totalResultsAvailable);
}
var searchDataReq = 'http://search.yahooapis.com/ImageSearchService/V1/imageSearch?appid=YahooDemo&query=Madonna&output=json&callback=ws_results';

//make Cross Domain request, callback method is onSuccess
var objTransaction = YAHOO.util.Get.script(searchDataReq,
                              { onSuccess: function() {alert("file loaded"); }});

Here is a live example running this code: YUI Get Utility JSON Demo

Early spring in the garden, its already getting crowded!

One thing that I’ve been experimenting with is using Checkstyles to help with refactoring legacy code. I use the following checks to identify areas of the code that can use some clean up.

Refactoring Checks

• ReturnCount
• MethodLength
• FileLength
• CyclomaticComplexity

I have a check configuration just for refactoring that I turn on for legacy projects. That way I can easily identify areas where I should be spending my time and I’m not overwhelmed by multiple Checkstyle warnings within the code.


testFindPersonByLastName(com.mycompany.app.dao.PersonDaoTest) Time elapsed: 3.198 sec <<< ERROR!
org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.HibernateQueryException: Person is not mapped [from Person where lastName=?]; nested exception is org.hibernate.hql.ast.QuerySyntaxException: Person is not mapped [from Person where lastName=?]
Caused by: org.hibernate.hql.ast.QuerySyntaxException: Person is not mapped [from Person where lastName=?]


After poking around for a while, I found a hibernate.cfg.xml under 'src/test/resources' and I copied the changes from 'src/main/resources' to this location. Then the test ran perfectly, but I thought this was odd. It looks like the hibernate.cfg.xml without the changes was found on the classpath before the other one. (It would be nice if java could warn you about finding duplicate files on the classpath somehow???)

Now that I knew the solution is was easy to find this page in the forums.
http://www.nabble.com/Failed-unit-test-in-Appfuse-Hibernate-tutorial-tf3918759s2369r4.html

The good news is that this bug is already fixed , so I hope no one else needs this


//create sample vector and fill with data
Vector sampleVector = new Vector(5);
sampleVector.add("dddddddd");
sampleVector.add("a");
sampleVector.add("ccccc");
sampleVector.add("bbbbbbbbbbbbbbb");
sampleVector.add("eeeee");

//results
System.out.println("unsorted:" +sampleVector);
//default sort
Collections.sort(sampleVector);
System.out.println("sorted:"+sampleVector);
//reverse vector
Collections.reverse(sampleVector);
System.out.println("reversed:"+sampleVector);
//custom sort
Collections.sort(sampleVector, stringLengthCompare);
System.out.println("sorted by length:"+sampleVector);


There’s nothing ground breaking in this code, but I feel like its always good to have a refresher in some of Java’s fundamentals. If you’re a beginner or just enjoy a refresher check out these links:

Examples using java 5

More documentation on java1.4

Java Trails: Collections