[gatein-dev] Portal and page names and case sensitivity

Wed May 12 13:37:20 EDT 2010

On Wed, 2010-05-12 at 18:08 +0300, Peter Nedonosko wrote:
> On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 4:16 PM, Nicolas Filotto
> <nicolas.filotto at exoplatform.com> wrote:
> > I created the related issue on your
> > behalf https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/EXOJCR-725
> 
> Guys, we need your feedback on the issue and questions asked there.

replying in this email since trying to have a discussion in jira is
difficult due to lack of threading.

- I believe mysql has been case insensitive by default for a while:
doc for 4.1 http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/case-sensitivity.html
and is that way with the current 5.5
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/case-sensitivity.html
I don't know about mssql.

I believe the issue here is that JCR creates the tables for the
database. We are assuming that the database will be configured to be
case sensitive (at least for one column, JCR_SITEM NAME). Since the jcr
creates the table, and can make it case sensitive, then it should
probably be setup this way so that it works out of the box.

I am a complete db noob, but if the admin creates the database and
forgets to make the database case sensitive, can they easily go back and
make it case sensitive? or is that something that has to happen at
database creation?

> >
> > On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 5:01 PM, Nicolas Filotto
> > <nicolas.filotto at exoplatform.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Thomas, could you please a create an issue in the JCR project?
> >>
> >> On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 10:44 AM, Nicolas Filotto
> >> <nicolas.filotto at exoplatform.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 10:43 AM, Thomas Heute <theute at redhat.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> On 05/11/2010 10:38 AM, Nicolas Filotto wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> According to this blog post
> >>>> http://mysqldatabaseadministration.blogspot.com/2006/09/case-sensitive-mysql.html
> >>>> for MySQL, we can specify a collation at database creation
> >>>>
> >>>> It shows at *table* creation ;)
> >>>
> >>> What do you mean?
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 10:30 AM, Thomas Heute <theute at redhat.com>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 05/11/2010 10:25 AM, Nicolas Filotto wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Unfortunately, changing from  VARCHAR to  VARBINARY is just impossible
> >>>>> at this stage since several versions of eXo JCR 1.12 have already been
> >>>>> released and those version would then be incompatible. Moreover, I'm pretty
> >>>>> sure that it will create side effects more painful than case sensitivity
> >>>>> issues.
> >>>>> The only way to solve this problem is to specify clearly in the doc
> >>>>> that the database must be case insensitive.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Can this be set at DB level ? I thought it was at table level ? And
> >>>>> since tables are created by JCR it's a bit tricky.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> We're going without any change, it's not as bad as I originally thought
> >>>>> it was, I'm still curious about the possibilities though.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 8:44 PM, Matthew Wringe <mwringe at redhat.com>
> >>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Fri, 2010-05-07 at 19:16 -0400, Matthew Wringe wrote:
> >>>>>> > On Thu, 2010-05-06 at 22:49 +0200, Thomas Heute wrote:
> >>>>>> > >
> >>>>>> > > The great MySQL and MSSQL made that choice that tables (by
> >>>>>> > > default) are
> >>>>>> > > made case insensitive.
> >>>>>> > > Meaning that 'foobar' is the same as 'FooBar'.
> >>>>>> > > Today if you create a portal or a page 'toto' and then 'tOtO' it
> >>>>>> > > will
> >>>>>> > > work for other databases but for MySQL or MSSQL it will fail.
> >>>>>> >
> >>>>>> > Page names that vary only in case work fine for me with MySQL, but I
> >>>>>> > do
> >>>>>> > experience the problem with portal names.
> >>>>>> >
> >>>>>> > > We should prevent to have 2 portal names that are the same (case
> >>>>>> > > insensitive). We can't do a simple JCR query (AFAIK) to verify if
> >>>>>> > > 2
> >>>>>> > > portal names are the same (case insensitive), unless we try and
> >>>>>> > > catch an
> >>>>>> > > error. But the error would only happen for those 2 and would
> >>>>>> > > potentially
> >>>>>> > > make a migration from 1 DB to another difficult since they would
> >>>>>> > > react
> >>>>>> > > differently.
> >>>>>> >
> >>>>>> > The problem is that we have a field name which as part of it
> >>>>>> > contains
> >>>>>> > the portal name, and MySQL is converting this into lower case. This
> >>>>>> > doesn't actually store the portal name, and its not used as a key
> >>>>>> > (nor
> >>>>>> > is it set as unique).
> >>>>>> >
> >>>>>> > I created a quick hack in the jcr that would allow for it to get
> >>>>>> > multiple values back from the sql query and check them to return
> >>>>>> > only
> >>>>>> > the correct result.
> >>>>>> >
> >>>>>> > This appears to work, and it gives the correct error messages about
> >>>>>> > portals existing or not. BUT, there is some unique index restraint
> >>>>>> > setup
> >>>>>> > somewhere which is preventing me from saving the data back to the
> >>>>>> > database :(
> >>>>>> >
> >>>>>> > > The other option is to transform all ids to lowercase before
> >>>>>> > > storing in
> >>>>>> > > Database so we are safe with all database. I actually think it
> >>>>>> > > would be
> >>>>>> > > a good practice as those ids appear in the URL which are usually
> >>>>>> > > all in
> >>>>>> > > lowercase.
> >>>>>> >
> >>>>>> > The urls are not in lowercase though, if we want to access the
> >>>>>> > 'classic'
> >>>>>> > or 'CLASSIC' portal, we can't have the url all in lowercase.
> >>>>>> >
> >>>>>> > > Or if anyone think about any other option ?
> >>>>>> >
> >>>>>> > Is there not some sort of case sensitive mode in MySQL that we can
> >>>>>> > have
> >>>>>> > as a requirement for use with GateIn? The user already needs to
> >>>>>> > setup
> >>>>>> > and configure the db anyways.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> We can easily change this by making the table use VARBINARY for the
> >>>>>> field instead of VARCHAR. There is a jira for here
> >>>>>> https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/JBEPP-334 with a patch attached.
> >>>>>> Someone working on the JCR will need to make this change.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> >
> >>>>>> > > Thomas.
> >>>>>> > > _______________________________________________
> >>>>>> > > gatein-dev mailing list
> >>>>>> > > gatein-dev at lists.jboss.org
> >>>>>> > > https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/gatein-dev
> >>>>>> >
> >>>>>> >
> >>>>>> > _______________________________________________
> >>>>>> > gatein-dev mailing list
> >>>>>> > gatein-dev at lists.jboss.org
> >>>>>> > https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/gatein-dev
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>>> gatein-dev mailing list
> >>>>>> gatein-dev at lists.jboss.org
> >>>>>> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/gatein-dev
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Nicolas Filotto
> >>>>> JCR Product Manager
> >>>>> Project Manager
> >>>>> eXo Platform SAS
> >>>>> nicolas.filotto at exoplatform.com
> >>>>> +33 (0)6 31 32 92 19
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Nicolas Filotto
> >>>> JCR Product Manager
> >>>> Project Manager
> >>>> eXo Platform SAS
> >>>> nicolas.filotto at exoplatform.com
> >>>> +33 (0)6 31 32 92 19
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Nicolas Filotto
> >>> JCR Product Manager
> >>> Project Manager
> >>> eXo Platform SAS
> >>> nicolas.filotto at exoplatform.com
> >>> +33 (0)6 31 32 92 19
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Nicolas Filotto
> >> JCR Product Manager
> >> Project Manager
> >> eXo Platform SAS
> >> nicolas.filotto at exoplatform.com
> >> +33 (0)6 31 32 92 19
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Nicolas Filotto
> > JCR Product Manager
> > Project Manager
> > eXo Platform SAS
> > nicolas.filotto at exoplatform.com
> > +33 (0)6 31 32 92 19
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > gatein-dev mailing list
> > gatein-dev at lists.jboss.org
> > https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/gatein-dev
> >
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gatein-dev mailing list
> gatein-dev at lists.jboss.org
> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/gatein-dev