We may need to connect to DB for some handy tasks, like simulating response, DB house keeping and some other routine tasks.

In Python, there are several ways to connect to DB. An well known approach is using ORM, similar to JPA in Java.

My task is to connect Python to MSSQL, the technology stack is as followed.

– Python
– SQLAlchemy
– PyODBC
– UnixODBC
– tdsodbc
– FreeTDS
– MSSQL

First of all, we need to install all the relevant linux library via apt-get

sudo apt-get install freetds-dev freetds-bin tdsodbc unixodbc-dev unixodbc 

And then install the following packages via pip3

pip3 install sqlalchemy
pip3 install pyodbc

After that, we have to configure the TDS driver, modify /etc/freetds/freetds.conf , add the following section

[MSSQL]
        host = 10.168.10.160
        port = 1433
        tds version = 8.0
        client charset = UTF-8

And then configure the FreeTDS driver in ODBC driver, /etc/odbcinst.ini

[FreeTDS]
Description = FreeTDS
Driver = /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/odbc/libtdsodbc.so
Setup = /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/odbc/libtdsS.so
FileUsage = 1
CPTimeout =
CPResuse  =
client charset = utf-8

Finally, we need to configure the ODBC instance in /etc/odbc.ini

[MSSQL]
Description = "test"
Driver = FreeTDS
Servername = MSSQL
Port = 1433
Database = my_mssql_db
Trace = No

Create a new python script file to test the connectivity

import sys
import sqlalchemy

def main(argv):
    print(sqlalchemy.__version__)
    eng = sqlalchemy.create_engine("mssql+pyodbc://my_mssql_account:hello123@MSSQL")
    with eng.connect() as con:
        rs = con.execute('''
            select * from xxxx
        ''')
        data = rs.fetchone()
        print(data)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main(sys.argv)

DONE!

Installing Python virtual env

sudo apt-get install python3.4-venv

Set a Project with Python virtualenv, venv is a pathname

python3 -m venv venv

Activate the virtualenv

source venv/bin/activate

deactivate the virtualenv

deactivate

Download the .gitignore and Git init

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/github/gitignore/master/Python.gitignore -O .gitignore
git init

Export the dependencies

pip3 freeze > requirements.txt

Restore the requirements file

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Configure Pycharm
Pycharm

There are plenty of tutorial for configure PHP in Ubuntu. However, it seems there is lacking of a complete guide for PHP Development in Ubuntu, especially for Debugging.

A debugger is definitely the best friend of a developer.

This post will contains the following three parts.

1. Enabling the userdir module in Ubuntu
2. Configure PHPStorm to upload to a local directory
3. Enabling XDebug in Apache2

1. Enabling the userdir module in Ubuntu

a. Enable the userdir module

root@jimmy-ubuntu:/etc/apache2/mods-available# a2enmod userdir

b. Enable PHP in the userdir by modifying /etc/apache2/mods-available/php5.ini. By default, userdir is just for placing static files. This is blocked explicitly in php5.ini. So, we have to comment it out.

#<IfModule mod_userdir.c>
#    <Directory /home/*/public_html>
#        php_admin_flag engine Off
#    </Directory>
#</IfModule>

c. Test with phpinfo.php in /home/jimmy/public_html

phpinfo();

d. Use browser to browse http://localhost/~jimmy/phpinfo.php

2. Configure PHPStorm to upload to a local directory

3. Enabling XDebug in Apache2

a. First, we need to install and enable XDebug in Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install php5-xdebug
sudo php5enmod xdebug

b. Modify /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini to include the following.

zend_extension=xdebug.so
xdebug.remote_enable=1
xdebug.remote_handler="dbgp"
xdebug.remote_host="localhost"
xdebug.remote_mode="req"
xdebug.remote_port=9000
xdebug.idekey="PHPSTORM"

c. Restart Apache2

d. In PHPStorm, we need to enable the listening port. By default, it is listening to port 9000.

e. Next, we need to set the Cookie in the page, XDebug is enabled by the existence of cookie. Use browser developer console to run the following line.

javascript:(function() {document.cookie='XDEBUG_SESSION='+'PHPSTORM'+';path=/;';})()

f. Add a break point in your PHP Code, run the browser. It should break at your break point.