function isObject(obj) {
return obj.constructor == Object;
}

function print_object(object, level){
var tab = “”;
if(level > 0){
for(i = 0; i < level; i++) tab += “\t”;
}
var str = “”;
for(prop in object) {
if(!isObject(object[prop])) str += tab + prop + ” value :” + object[prop] + “\n”;
else str += tab + prop + “\n” + print_object(object[prop], level + 1);
}
return str;
}

and how to use this function is really simple approach

address = addresses.Placemark[0];
alert(print_object(address, 0));

in this scenario, i would like to print first placemark object return by geocoding function. Parameter level is use to make nice print view using tab character.

$this->Product->find(’all’, array(‘conditions’ => ‘1=1 GROUP BY Product.category_id’));

Now CakePhp have a clean sintak for GROUP BY by new additional paramater on find function. We can use ‘group’ to define GROUP BY on cakephp. For example

$this->Product->find(’all’, array(’fields’ => array(’Product.category_id’, ‘COUNT(Product.hotel_id) as total’), ‘group‘ => array(’Product.category_id’)));

How if we want to have HAVING sintak on query? i ussually use this solution for new cakephp

$this->Product->find(’all’, array(’fields’ => array(’Product.category_id’, ‘COUNT(Product.hotel_id) as total’), ‘group’ => array(’Product.category_id HAVING COUNT(Product.hotel_id) > 1′)));

To open an activity and wait for a result, we can use this sintax

Intent newIntent = new Intent(this.getApplicationContext(), ActivityClass2.class);
startActivityForResult(newIntent, 0);

ActivityClass2 is the class name of activity that we need to create and then open it from current activity. startActivityForResult is a method to run newActivity. Later we can have the result by add this function on current Activity

protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data)

First to send a data or parameter to newActivity we can use this sintax

Bundle bundle = new Bundle();
bundle.putString(”param1″, “test”);

Intent newIntent = new Intent(this.getApplicationContext(), ActivityClass2.class);
newIntent.putExtras(bundle);
startActivityForResult(newIntent, 0);

On ActivityClass2, we can read this parameter using this sintax

Bundle bundle = this.getIntent().getExtras();
String param1 = bundle.getString(”param1″);

be carefull to use param1, because it can be null if we didn’t set it.

So it is very easy to send or passing data or parameter between two activity in Android. One last thing is to return a value for startActivityForResult, we can add this line code to close ActivityClass2 and return focus to opener plus send data to opener activity.

Bundle bundle = new Bundle();
bundle.putString(”status”, “OK”);
Intent mIntent = new Intent();
mIntent.putExtras(bundle);
setResult(RESULT_OK, mIntent);
finish();

For example we have parent table Author and hasOne Post, we can set INNER JOIN relation by default on model class or in controller using bindModel. In this example the hasOne relation set on model class

<?php
class Author extends AppModel {
var $name = ‘Author’;
var $hasOne = array(’Post’=>array(’type’=>’INNER’));
}
?>

and running on controller

$this->Author->find(’all’);

cakephp will generate query for author table.

SELECT `Author`.`id`, `Author`.`name`, `Post`.`id`, `Post`.`post_id`, `Post`.`title` FROM `authors` AS `Author` INNER JOIN `posts` AS `Post` ON (`Post`.`post_id` = `Author`.`id`) WHERE 1 = 1

So places table will have id, name, categories fields. and categories table have id, name. We want to save category list into categories field on places table. The data will look like this ‘2,3,4,5,6,7,8′. A question will come to your mind about how to grab or find a matching id inside this categories, for example we want to show all place with category id 5.

We cannot use LIKE in this example because it cannot match perfectly on many digit number. So i found a solution that easy to do. The query to find all data inside mysql Array field is

SELECT * FROM places WHERE FIND_IN_SET(5, categories)

Another solution is by adding new table to save category list for place. But my solution look nice, right?

• write or code java source for android application
• good overview for your project inside project manager
• user friendly interface to create new android project
• compile and debugging is as easy as desktop application development
• nice java source code editor with high text editing functionality for developer
• setting emulator also easy with good overview using DDMS perspective
• run android application inside emulator with simple click

There are many more advantage using eclipse as your IDE for android. Believe me it makes you enjoy coding android with their nice interface and automatic process.

Installing eclipse for android

1. Install JRE or JDK, but i suggest you to install JDK as we will develop java application. Read last article about installing jdk for android.
2. Download Eclipse IDE for Java Developers at http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/. Its about 92 MB.
3. Extract the zip file into a folder for example D:\ANDROID after downloaded
4. at this step you will have D:\ANDROID\eclipse folder
5. run D:\ANDROID\eclipse\eclipse.exe. On first time you will asked for workspace directory. It is a directory where you want your android project to be stored. For now just create new folder WORKSPACE in D:\ANDROID
6. install android sdk, you can read on installing android sdk article.
7. Now you need to connect eclipse and android sdk
8. on eclipse GUI, select Windows > Preferences menu on top.
9. select android and then locate your SDK Location, on my machine is D:\ANDROID\android-sdk, and then click apply
10. on eclipse GUI, select Help > Software Updates. some eclipse version maybe different menu location or name
11. click Available software tabs and then click Add site
12. You can try use this Location : https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/ or http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/. and then click OK
13. check the checkbox before https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/ or http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/ and then click Finish
14. It will direct you to download interface, wait until finish
15. at the end you will need to run plugins installation, just follow the step on interface.

At this point you already have a ready IDE for creating android application. Have fun and keep reading on my article about using eclipse to create android application.

First of all you need a java library installed on your machine. It can be a JRE or JDK, but i suggest you to install JDK as we want to develop a java application on our machine.

Installing JDK for android

1. go to http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp
2. find Java SE Development (JDK) section. The latest JDK version at the moment is JDK 6 Update 14
3. Click on Download Button
4. Run the executable installation file after download finished

Note : you can use J2EE, but J2SE is enough for android.

Installing android SDK

1. download http://developer.android.com/sdk/1.5_r3/index.html based on your Operating System platform. In my machine i use Windows so i download android-sdk-windows-1.5_r3.zip
2. extract android-sdk-windows-1.5_r3.zip into a folder for example D:\android-sdk
3. add D:\android-sdk\tools into PATH environmental variables on your system. You can find it on Control Panels > Systems
4. please restart your computer

At this point you have an android sdk that installed on your machine. You are ready to use android sdk and run using their great android emulator. You can coding using your text editor and compile using JDK and then create Android Package using Android SDK and then run it using android emulator. But i suggest you to use eclipse because it is more easier to build android application using eclipse automatic process.

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android=”http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android”
android:layout_width=”fill_parent”
android:layout_height=”fill_parent”>

<com.google.android.maps.MapView
android:id=”@+id/mapView”
android:layout_width=”fill_parent”
android:layout_height=”fill_parent”
android:enabled=”true”
android:clickable=”true”
android:apiKey=”0QGdlm3NNz0KF5zSUTn5FvObCU2EUn7Dim25Sjw”
/>

<Button id=”@+id/btnViewPOI”
android:layout_width=”wrap_content”
android:layout_height=”wrap_content”
android:layout_alignParentBottom=”true”
android:layout_alignParentRight=”true”
android:visibility=”visible”
android:text=”List” />

</RelativeLayout>

on my Activity class, i was try to find a reference to button btnViewPOI. Here is a part of the code in my Activity class

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);

final Button btnViewPOI = (Button) findViewById(R.id.btnViewPOI);
if(btnViewPOI == null) Log.d(”null”, “is null”);

And i always get null value for btnViewPOI. I spend a day to figure out the problem and almost give up, but thanks god that i notice if the layout parser did not understand the attribute id, we must use a complete android:id. And i change it and its work, no more returning a null value.

The code for my button in layout xml file should look like this

<Button
android:id=”@+id/btnViewPOI”
android:layout_width=”wrap_content”
android:layout_height=”wrap_content”
android:layout_alignParentBottom=”true”
android:layout_alignParentRight=”true”
android:visibility=”visible”
android:text=”List” />

So i try to summary the important thing to remember if findViewById return a null value:

1. if you use xml based layout, you must add this line before run findViewById.
   setContentView(R.layout.main);
2. the id that you can use is only the id that define on your layout for each activity. To check the id you can find it on R class
3. remember to use complete android:id to define an id to a view

That all, i hope that you can solve the problem when findViewById return a null value.

A layout or html output is construct inside main layout and view for each actions. Main layout is a basic layout for your website. We can have some layout for different output type such as html, xml, rss, or etc. For each type we can have different layout as needed. For example registration page will have different layout with homepage.

By default cakephp use all layouts in folder cake\libs\view\layouts if you are not define your layout. You can override cakephp default layout by create ctp file in folder app/views/layouts. The default layout named as default.ctp. How to change this cakephp layout for certain controller action?

Simple create new ctp file inside app/views/layouts, for example mylayout.ctp. And then inside action function on controller put this code

$this->layout = ‘mylayout’;

or you can set folder path for the layout, for example we have layout file saved on app/views/layouts/xml/mylayout.ctp. you can set the path using this code

$this->layoutPath = ‘xml’;

so the complete code for changing the layout is

$this->layoutPath = ‘xml’;
$this->layout = ‘mylayout’;

i will explain a method to add RSS capability into your cakephp website. In this example we have posts controller for our blog post and we want to create RSS for post table. The rss url will look like this

http://www.yoursite.com/posts/rss or change routing for http://www.yoursite.com/rss into posts controller and rss action.

The implementation will explain in 4 step, so here we are

1. open app/config/routes.php, add this line and then save
   Router::connect(’/rss’, array(’controller’ => ‘posts’, ‘action’ => ‘rss’));
2. open app/controller/posts_controller.php and create new method or action
   function rss(){
   $this->set(’posts’, $this->paginate(’Post’));
   }
3. create app/views/posts/rss.ctp, and paste this lines
   <?php
   echo $rss->items($posts, ‘transformRSS’);
   function transformRSS($post) {
   return array(
   ‘title’ => $post['Post']['title'],
   ‘link’ => array(’action’ => ’show’, $post['Post']['id']),
   ‘guid’ => array(’action’ => ’show’, $post['Post']['id']),
   ‘description’ => $post['Post']['text'],
   ‘author’ => $post['User']['username'],
   ‘pubDate’ => $post['Post']['created']
   );
   }
   ?>
4. at this point your RSS is ready. check by open URL http://www.yoursite.com/posts/rss or http://www.yoursite.com/rss

As i said, adding or create rss using cakephp is relatively simple to do.