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I am now having a Christmas holiday in Taiwan, from 23/12 to 31/12. Hopefully I will take some good photos :D

Saturday night to Sunday morning is another endless battle, almost all colorfully part are now complete. And it was 5am and so I need some sleep...:
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But once sleep for 5 hours, my brain feel refresh and keep focus again. The green parts are not simple because all looks similar, I need to keep on try-and-error (seems like debug programming...). Well, here are the complete product:

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Ok some more close up:

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Ok, so the main question is: where this puzzle goes for? For sure it is now delivered to my girl friend's home (not by DHL, I take it to her home manually...), and as her Christmas gift ;-)

After one day, both Eeyore and Piglet are almost complete:
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Eeyore looks much smart now. Well, the mouth is not yet complete because the color too close to others. Look at the lovely sleepy Piglet, too. Part of flowers are also complete:

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For last Saturday I slept for few hours and start working again. Now Kessie is out there (hmm... is this Kessie? I am not sure, it just looks like some general Disney's characters). For Tigger I use a lot of time because of its pattern. Winnie the Pooh is not simple as its color may mixed with Tigger. Look at Eeyore, it mouth is now complete, too:

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Well... I haven't play puzzle for more than 5 years... Seems to be a punishment game... This is my target:
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After working for 3 hours, all edges are completed:
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Ok a close up to Eeyore (blue is the most simple...):
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Hopefully I can complete it before my Christmas holiday in Taiwan :D

I have been using Drupal's Adsense Injector for more than years and love it so much: it is simple, elegant and just enough. But since my personal blog upgrade to Drupal 6.x, I get some trouble with it as there is no official release for Drupal 6.x. Well... I need to hack 5.x version for 6.x manually...

An upgrade patch is submitted 8 months ago which now obsoleted. Finkpad ask help from my blog directly, so Michael Curry and I start some join development for getting the work done.

If you are looking for this handy module as me, please feel free to download the latest 6.x-2.x development snapshot for testing and report bug if possible. With you kindly help stable release should be out soon :D

At every Passover Festival the Roman governor was in the habit of setting free any one prisoner the crowd asked for. At that time there was a well-known prisoner named Jesus Barabbas. So when the crowd gathered, Pilate asked them, "Which one do you want me to set free for you? Jesus Barabbas or Jesus called the Messiah?" He knew very well that the Jewish authorities had handed Jesus over to him because they were jealous.

While Pilate was sitting in the judgment hall, his wife sent him a message: "Have nothing to do with that innocent man, because in a dream last night I suffered much on account of him."

The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask Pilate to set Barabbas free and have Jesus put to death. But Pilate asked the crowd, "Which one of these two do you want me to set free for you?"

"Barabbas!" they answered.

"What, then, shall I do with Jesus called the Messiah?" Pilate asked them.

"Crucify him!" They all answered.

But Pilate asked, "What crime has he committed?"

Then they started shouting at the top of their voices: "Crucify him!"

When Pilate saw that it was no use to go on, but that a riot might break out, he took some water, washed his hands in front of the crowd, and said, "I am not responsibility for the death of this man! This is your doing!"

The whole crowd answered, "Let the responsibility for his death fall on us and our children!"

Then Pilate set Barabbas free for them; and after he had Jesus whipped, he handed him over to be crucified.

(Bible, Matthew: 27)

This is a quick checklist for develop Drupal 7.x Oracle driver. They need to be solved before Oracle slip into Drupal core.

Reserved word conflict (integrate with siren)

Drupal core use some reserved word of Oracle, e.g. uid. To solve this we have 2 choice: 1. escape all table/column/constrain name with escape characters (http://drupal.org/node/371#comment-636053), or 2. clone Moodle implementation and prevent the use of reserved words for all supported database (http://docs.moodle.org/en/XMLDB_reserved_words).

Here we choose to use solution 2. This come with some extra benefit that, if we need to connect Drupal's database from other projects, e.g. Moodle, they will able to fetch Drupal's column as there is no reserved word conflict. So this can improve both cross database and cross project compatibility.

Related issues:

• resolve ANSI SQL-92/99/2003 reserved words conflict in query statements
  • [Oracle] replace reserved word 'uid' and 'access'

VARCHAR2 is no large enough, use BLOB instead (integrate with siren)

This is another critical issue. Oracle only support VARCHAR2 with maximum 4000 characters. It is always not enough for CMS. As a replacement we can use BLOB because it is more universal.

We also need to clone PostgreSQL's BLOB handling for Oracle, with RETURNING.

Related issues:

• [DBTNG + XDB] Replace some TEXT:BIG with BLOB (27/11)
  • Remap field as BLOB: {boxes}.body (27/11)
    • [DBTNG] revamp modules/block/* with DBTNG syntax (27/11)
  • Remap field as BLOB: {menu_router}.access_arguments and {menu_router}.page_arguments (27/11)
    • [DBTNG] revamp menu.inc with DBTNG syntax (27/11)
  • [DBTNG + BLOB + hash]: Revamp locales_source.source with BLOB and MD5 hashing (27/11)
  • [DBTNG + BLOB]: remap {watchdog}.variables (duplicated)
  • [DBTNG + BLOB] remap {comments}.comment (duplicated)
  • [DBTNG + BLOB] remap {aggregator_item}.description (duplicated)
  • [DBTNG + BLOB] remap {batch}.batch (duplicated)
  • [DBTNG + BLOB]: remap {node_revisions}.body and {node_revisions}.teaser (duplicated)

Empty string is not allow in Oracle, and will translate as NULL (integrate with siren)

This is a critical bug of Oracle, all empty string will translate as NULL automatically. It is NO WAY for Oracle to emulate as other RDBMS because it is a 2-state machine (valid or NULL) but not 3-state (valid, empty or NULL). Logic Diagram:

In order to overcome this limitation, we can first extend as 4 states: valid, "default", empty or NULL. Then restrict the use case as 3 states only, with replace the use of empty string as "default" value. Therefore both Oracle and other RDBMS can have identical support of SQL, and don't need to duel with different between = '' and IS NULL. Logic diagram:

Procedure: 1. update all schema as nullable string if required (only allow null with valid default value but not empty string), 2. restrict all string I/O with no empty string (force translate as NULL), 3. debug and update programming logic for using empty string with "default" value if possible. Therefore:

• Valid value: Keep untouch.
• NULL: Act as default replacement of empty string if no programming logic break.
• 'default': Use as exceptional replacement of empty string, work together with programming logic revamp.

P.S. This change will also benefit with the critical PostgrerSQL Blob bug with empty string (http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=41135), because we will no longer use empty string.

Related issues:

• [DBTNG + XDB] NOT NULL fields using a DEFAULT '' clause (27/11)
  • Use 'default' instead of '' as default actions parameters (duplicated)
  • Use 'default' instead of '' as default user name and password (duplicated)
  • Use 'default' instead of '' as undefined default language (duplicated)
• [DBTNG + pgsql] db_insert/db_update buggy with empty string input and BLOB field

Auto upper case table and column name (integrate with siren)

This can be handle with PDO::ATTR_CASE (http://www.php.net/manual/en/pdo.setattribute.php). Becareful! Field names should be reserved word safe.

Related issues:

• Force connection with PDO::CASE_LOWER

Max 30 characters for constraint name restriction (integrate with siren)

Oracle only allow 30 characters for constraint name. Moodle give a good example for solving this problem.

Related issues:

• [DBTNG + XDB] revamp key and index naming

Some SQL functions need abstraction (integrate with siren)

Different database coming with different SQL syntax for same function, e.g. MySQL use SUBSTR, where PostgreSQL use SUBSTRING. Some simple abstraction is required. ADOdb give a good example for solving this problem.

Related issues:

• [DBTNG + pgsql] Handle database-specific SQL functions/operators by simple abstraction

Prepare schema:

1. Check target fields (http://edin.no-ip.com/node/166).
   a. No default + NOT NULL => can't accept NULL so valid value only (1 status only)
   b. Default with '' => remove
2. Update schema with "NOT NULL => FALSE, (remove default)".
3. Running update.php. Ensure schema is valid.
4. Run related simpletest.

Once schema ready for expert install:

1. ORACLE_NULL => NULL
2. Before insert: check '' => NULL (!?)
3. Before normal variable binding: '' => NULL
4. check SQL syntax, change from = '' to IS NULL

Testing procedure:

1. expert mode -> patch -> update
2. normal mode -> patch -> update
3. normal mode + all modules -> patch -> update
4. patch -> install -> all modules