Developments Since the Last Post

PostgreSQL:
The last week or so we have been working on switching the database over to PostgreSQL, as well as learning to log on, open the database, and run queries.

Perl:
Annie and I worked on finding a good template for the perl script which communicates between the HTML form and the database. Dr. Iba gave us a couple possibilities online, but we weren't sure what to do with them or it they would work, and we couldn't find any useful ones of our own. In the meeting with Dr. Iba today we discussed it and then Dr. Iba worked on it some, but ran into some problems. In the meantime Annie and I are supposed to modify the perl script we had for the first New Readings page to work for the other HTML pages. Although the script just writes the form data to a text file, it is a good place to start until it can be made to communicate with the database.

Julia:
Annie and I are setting up a meeting with Julia this week. Dr. Iba wants Julia to come by so that they can work on database corrections.

Database Connection Language

Annie and I met on 1-13-05 to discuss the pros and cons of various languages for connecting the webpage to the database. After some internet research we decided that JSP was probably not really what we wanted. While Perl looked more difficult than PHP it looked more powerful and less limited than PHP. Thus we chose Perl.

The research proposal was postponed to tomorrow after the meeting with Dr. Iba, Dr. McMahon, and Julia.

Interface Tweaking

Annie and I met on 1-11-05 to accomplish the tasks on our to do list for the week.

We looked at java script first. As it turned out the 'or' operator was incorrect some how, so she just set the problem scripts to check and make sure that none of the fields equaled zero, instead of limiting the values to specific lengths. This made the code a little messier, but it is now bug free.

After checking with a reference, linking the pages turned out to be very easy, so we modified the URLs in the html and tested it. The pages are now linked.

We chose the Enter a Reading page to test the Perl script modifications, and changed the fields and number of fields as noted in the Perl script file. We e-mailed it to Dr. Iba to check.

The meeting with Dr. McMahon was set for Friday afternoon, and Annie and I decided to meet Thursday evening to go over the research credit application.

New Semester Level Setting

We met with Dr. Iba on 1-10-05.

Since Annie and I will be doing this project for C.S. research credits, we discussed how many units we should apply for (Dr. Iba said we should plan on doing 2-3 hours per week, per unit). If we get 3-4 units for this project (and semesters can be combined) this research will count as one C.S. elective.
We also discussed goals for the semester, and they are:
--To provide an interface that allows for data entry and minimal data analysis.
--To learn SQL so that both Annie and I can run searches on the database that are requested by Dr. McMahon or Julia.
--To work out a way to export data from the database so that it can be graphed using Excel.

Dr. Iba described what he had done over Christmas break on the schema and some of what he and Dr. McMahon had discussed.

We also created a to do list for the week:
--Link the html pages together
--Fix the bugs in the java script
--Modify the current Perl script file to fit one of our html pages
--Set a date to meet with Dr. McMahon for more level setting

Schema

On 12-9-04 we met with Dr. Iba.

We decided to create a Schema to define tables that we could reload as necessary. We experimented with different programs to create it and ended up with an initial draft of it. Dr. Iba said he would complete it over Christmas break.

The java script for the web interface is still not working, and the html pages need to be linked together.