email article printer friendly

SourceCafe
Generate Java Code for Databases
by Curtis Krauskopf

July 2003 Issue

Developing a Web-enabled database isn't easy. Changes inevitably creep into the schema after the Java classes have been coded. Likewise, propagating changes to the architecture of a class structure is very tedious. In most nontextbook situations, the net result is a set of Java classes that don't exactly reflect the database schema and lack consistency in their architecture.

SourceCafe simplifies database-driven Web development by creating Java Servlets, JavaBeans, JavaServer Pages (JSPs), and HTML code. Its biggest strengths are its abilities to connect to any JDBC-compliant database, determine the structure of the database automatically, and then generate compilable code that is able to communicate intelligently with that database.

The SourceCafe GUI interface allows you to choose from hundreds of variations of database architectures. This feature, by itself, becomes an excellent tutorial for Java beginners that want to try different modeling techniques. Overall, the GUI is wonderfully laid out, and the oversize shortcut icons are very easy to hit (see Figure 1)

The technical support from EJD Technologies is first-rate. When I encountered a problem in which SourceCafe would throw a null exception when I tried to load the GUI, they were very responsive to my questions, and they seemed genuinely concerned that I was having trouble. After following their instructions and providing some configuration files, EJD was able to publish a patch that did fix the problem. That's what I call excellent support. And unlike most products, the online help for SourceCafe really is helpful. Almost all of the properties and their effects are clearly documented.

Figure 1. SourceCafe GUI

Although the demo version is limited to three tables, I was able to adequately test SourceCafe's ability to handle different Java data types automatically because I picked tables that consisted of a variety of common MySQL data types.

The source code generated by SourceCafe is excellent. The code contains both JavaDoc comments and regular comments. The code is well organized into blocks separated by blank lines, contains meaningful parameters, and follows standard code-formatting conventions. Best of all, it compiles without needing manual changes. Installing the code can be somewhat of a problem, though. A certain level of experience is expected from the user in being able to segregate generated files into appropriate directories. A wizard that places code in the right place would certainly be helpful in this step.