Creating an a4 with rulers to test the output accuracy of a printer

I recently bought a new printer and wanted to test its borderless printing capabilities. So I wrote a small VBA script that creates an A4 MS Word document with four rulers, each starting at one of the four borders:
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In case you're interested in the source code, I put in on github. The PDF can be downloaded from here (http://renenyffenegger.ch/blog/files/a4-ruler.pdf).

The missing \b regular expression special character in Oracle.

Oracle's regular expressions don't support the special regular expression character \b, at least not in Oracle 11i.

Consider the following table:

create table tq84_word_boundaries ( txt varchar2(50) ); insert into tq84_word_boundaries values ('AFooABarAndABaz' ); insert into tq84_word_boundaries values ('A FooA BarAndABaz' ); insert into tq84_word_boundaries values ('A Foo, a Bar and a Baz'); insert into tq84_word_boundaries values ('A Foo without a Baz' ); insert into tq84_word_boundaries values ('Foo Bar, Baz' ); insert into tq84_word_boundaries values ('Is it a Foo?' ); insert into tq84_word_boundaries values ('Bar-Foo-Baz' );

Now, I want to find all records that contain the exact word Foo. That is, I want, for example A Foo without a Baz (the fourth record), but I don't want A FooA BarAndABaz (the second record) because FooA is not the exact word Foo

If Oracle supported \b I could use

select * from tq84_word_boundaries where regexp_like(txt, '\bFoo\b');

Yet, Oracle, does not support it and no record is returned.

To improve matters, I could try

select * from tq84_word_boundaries where regexp_like(txt, '\sFoo\s');

This approach returns

TXT -------------------------------------------------- A Foo without a Baz

A bit better, but far from perfect. For example, the fifth record (Foo Bar, Baz) is not returned, because the \s doesn't match start of line. So, I improve the where condition:

select * from tq84_word_boundaries where regexp_like(txt, '(^|\s)Foo($|\s)');

The record is now returned:

TXT -------------------------------------------------- A Foo without a Baz Foo Bar, Baz

Yet again, this is far from perfect. I need also record records where Foo is followed or lead by a non word character (such as ? or -):

select * from tq84_word_boundaries where regexp_like(txt, '(^|\s|\W)Foo($|\s|\W)');

This returns

TXT -------------------------------------------------- A Foo, a Bar and a Baz A Foo without a Baz Foo Bar, Baz Is it a Foo? Bar-Foo-Baz

I think I can live with it.

Links

Source code on github

Little things that make live easier #6: Using clip.exe in cmd.exe to copy somehting into the clipboard

Windows comes with a handy little program, named clip.exe, that can be used to quickly copy something into the clipboard from cmd.exe.

For example, if I wanted to copy the current working directory into the clipboard, I'd go

C:\some\long\and\complicated\path>echo %CD% | clip

Similarly, if I needed to copy all files within the current directory, I'd do

C:\some\path>dir /b | clip

Also, I can copy the content of a file into the clipboard like so:

C:\some\path>clip < someFile.txt

Paginating SQL queries with Oracle 12c

Oracle 12c not only allows to create TOP N queries with an understandable syntax, the row limiting clause also makes it possible to paginate a result set:

create table tq84_table ( id number, txt varchar2(10) ); insert into tq84_table values ( 2, 'two' ); insert into tq84_table values ( 1, 'one' ); insert into tq84_table values ( 6, 'six' ); insert into tq84_table values ( 8, 'eight'); insert into tq84_table values ( 3, 'three'); insert into tq84_table values ( 7, 'seven'); insert into tq84_table values ( 4, 'four' ); insert into tq84_table values ( 9, 'nine' ); insert into tq84_table values (10, 'ten' ); insert into tq84_table values ( 5, 'five' );

select id, txt from tq84_table order by id offset 4 rows -- skip first 4 records fetch next 3 rows only -- fetch next 3 records ;

returns

ID TXT ---------- ---------- 5 five 6 six 7 seven

Links

SQL statement on github

TOP N select queries with Oracle 12c

With Oracle 12c, it's possible, finally, to do TOP n select queries with an easily understandable syntax.

Here's a table to demonstrate it:

create table tq84_table ( id number, txt varchar2(10) ); insert into tq84_table values ( 2, 'two' ); insert into tq84_table values ( 1, 'one' ); insert into tq84_table values ( 6, 'six' ); insert into tq84_table values ( 8, 'eight'); insert into tq84_table values ( 3, 'three'); insert into tq84_table values ( 7, 'seven'); insert into tq84_table values ( 4, 'four' ); insert into tq84_table values ( 0, 'zero' ); insert into tq84_table values ( 9, 'nine' ); insert into tq84_table values (10, 'ten' ); insert into tq84_table values ( 5, 'five' ); commit;

Now, a select statement with fetch first row only:

select id, txt from tq84_table order by id fetch first row only;

selects

ID TXT ---------- ---------- 0 zero

Links

Paginating SQL queries with Oracle 12c

SQL on github

Little things that make live easier #5: Navigation the Windows Registry with Powershell

It's possible to navigate the Windows Registry with Powershell

PS C:\> cd HKLM:/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/PowerShell PS HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell> ls Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell SKC VC Name Property --- -- ---- -------- 4 2 1 {Install, PID} PS HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell> cd 1 PS HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1> ls Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1 SKC VC Name Property --- -- ---- -------- 0 1 0407 {Install} 0 6 PowerShellEngine {ApplicationBase, PSCompatibleVersion, RuntimeVersion, ConsoleHostAssemblyName...} 1 0 PSConfigurationProviders {} 2 0 ShellIds {}

Little things that make live easier #4: writing colored text in cmd.exe

A constant source of frustration when using cmd.exe is that it seems impossible to write colored text easily, unlike other shells (although I don't consider cmd.exe to be a shell). Yet, if powershell is installed, then it's possible to write such colored text. Here's a powershell script (c:\temp\colors.ps1):

write-host "" write-host " " -noNewLine write-host "Warning" -foregroundColor red -backgroundColor yellow write-host " " -noNewLine write-host "-------" -foregroundColor blue write-host " Wearing headphones doesn't" -foregroundColor red write-host " make farts silent." -foregroundColor red

When executed with something like

powershell -executionpolicy bypass c:/temp/colors.ps1

It prints