Advanced Search on GitHub

Today I was cruising the MongoDB Java driver GitHub repo. I was interested in the implementation of the eval() method, as I wanted to ensure I cater for all returned types within mongometer.

Seemed simple enough, I thought.

I went straight to DB.java and saw that we're calling command() and extracting an object keyed by retval. Interesting, to see retval, a potentially project-wide constant, defined as a String rather than as an Enum. Anyhoo, this isn't a critique of the driver code, so I'll park that for now, I just wanted to find what could possibly be returned by eval().

An easy way to do this is to fetch the branch and search it locally. But I wouldn't really want to do this for every single project that I ever want to cruise? No way, Pedro! So, let's use the online GitHub Search.

    A good place to start: https://github.com/search
    Advanced Search : retval repo:mongodb/mongo-java-driver
    Search for: Code
    Search Language: Java

That all seems sane enough. Right?



Wow! That was unexpected. I haven't been returned the results limited to the filetype of Java, I've been returned a list of files that contain the term java. Let's have a quick look at the querystring.



It seems to be searching for Java, so let's swap out Java for retval, our actual search term.



Now you get the results for retval. We have an unknown number of matches for retval from within the Java driver code base. But is seems we have been returned results for every version of the file that the search term is found in. Let's park that and come back to it later.



You get the same results when you completely remove the language from the querystring. Let's remove it and leave it off as it reverts back to using Java as the search term.



It might not seem like it, but we're getting somewhere. Notice there is a repo parameter on the querystring. Let's pull the repo:mongodb/mongo-java-driver out of the q term and stick it in the repo parameter.



Now on the search form we have a separate input field where you can specify the repo.



So, let's try limiting it to a single version of each file in the repo. Hmmm, not sure how to do this. Anyone got any ideas? I must be missing something as I'd have thought that search is fundamental to any website these days. Anything I try seems to result in with the same error message.

Invalid search query. Try quoting it.

All I want to do is search files for a given string, without having to fetch the entire repo.

I'd look through the github.com repo to investigate further, but I don't seem to be able to find github on github.

To be continued...

Creating your project with IntelliJ

Now we have a development environment configured, lets create the project and start taking it to the next level.

Creating a project in IntelliJ

New Project
New Project from Scratch
Enter the name: mongometer
Select Maven Module
Next
Select Create from archetype (I chose maven j2ee simple)

Arrrrg! Don't do this! Man, IntelliJ sat spinning the tyres for an age.  I ended up killing it and starting again.

To delete a project, close intellij and remove the project folder
projects are in IdeaProjects
$rm -r ~/IdeaProjects/mongometer

Second time around
New Project
New Project from Scratch
Enter the name: mongometer
Select Maven Module
Next
Deselect the create from archetype

Create a package
Create the classes and the properties file

Fix imports
Add dependencies to the pom.xml

This is what I need for mongometer

• junit4.10
  
• mongodb 2.7.2
  
• ApacheJMeter_core 2.6
  
• jorphan 2.6
  

Push to GitHub

$cd ~/IdeaProjects/mongometer
$git init
$git add *.java
$git add *.properties
$git add *.xml
$git commit -m 'Initial upload of the project'
$git remote add origin ssh://github.com/yourname/mongometer.git
$git push -u origin +master

Voilà! You can go to your repo, and the project files are there.  Happy days.

Points of interest

• The + performs a force push to github.  I'm guessing this happened because when I created a new repository on GitHub I opted to create the README file.  I won't do this again.
  
• IntelliJ complained about setting up the repo outside of IntelliJ.  No problem, you just add the repo inside IntelliJ.  I've been an Eclipse person for years (though we've decided that we'd like spend some time apart) so I'm not 100% sure of how to do this inside IntelliJ just yet.
  
• This is a great site for listing dependencies http://mvnrepository.com/ for setting up your pom.xml

Install git on ubuntu

This is a brief step by step guide to install git and hook up to github using ssh.

Get git
$sudo apt-get install git-core

Check the install
$which git
$git --version

Configure git
$git config --global user.name "Firstname Lastname"
$git config --global user.email you@domain.com

Set up your ssh key
$ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "you@domain.com"
[hit enter]
set your key password
Your identification has been saved in /home/username/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/username/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
fingerprint you@domain.com

Add the key to github
$less ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
Copy the key to your clipboard

Go to your github Account Settings

Click "SSH Keys" in the left sidebar
Click "Add SSH key"
Paste your key into the "Key" field
Click "Add key"
Confirm the action by entering your GitHub password

Verify the key
$ssh -T git@github.com
Y
enter the key password

You should get a success, "but GitHub does not provide shell access".

Set up a test repo
$mkdir repo-name
$cd repo-name
$git init
$touch README
$git add README
$git commit -m 'first commit'
$git remote add origin https://github.com/gitusername/repo-name.git
$git push -u origin master

you'll get a 403 error

Getting past the 403 error
$vi .git/config
change https for ssh
$git push -u origin master

you'll get a Permission denied (publickey) error

hmmm

$ssh-add -l shows the same fingerprint as the account settings on github
$ssh -vT git@github.com comes back saying I have successfully authenticated...

Getting past the Permission denied error
$cd ~/.ssh
$vi config

Host github.com
User git
Port 22
Hostname github.com
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
TCPKeepAlive yes
IdentitiesOnly yes

$git push -u origin master

Happy days! You should now see the README file on github