Sunday, August 17, 2014

Get Started With MySQL Database & SQL Programming

This article provides an overview of databases and discusses ANSI SQL and tells how PL/SQL, T-SQL and other SQL implementations differ from each other. And it discusses the MySQL open source database by walking through how to install and use MySQL workbench. And, it provides an easy-to-follow tutorial on popular SQL statements.

Getting Start With Databases


For an overview of databases and how organizations store data see the article titled "Common IT Positions & Career Plan - Software Developer Part 1" and review the section titled "Storing Enterprise Data".

Getting Started With MySQL


MySQL is open source database software provided to users under the GN General Public License. A GNU General Public License gives developers the "freedom" to change the database software as well as use it as part of an application and share it. When software is open source developers are granted access to copies of the source code. In addition, the software is usually made available free of charge.


There are several versions of MySQL as listed on the following URL: http://www.mysql.com/products/. This article focuses on the Community Edition of MySQL that runs on Windows.

MySQL includes a MySQL Installer for Windows users. The MySQL Installer invokes a wizards that steps users through the installation process to install roughly 8 components including the "world" and "sakila" sample databases and documentation. (Note that throughout this article I use the sakila database.) Among the components installed are the following;
  • MySQL Server - The database management software that actually holds the database tables, data and other database objects used to manage an organization's or entity's data.
  • MySQL Workbench - A graphical user interface that can be used to query data in the database, create a data-entity relationship diagram as well as create new database objects and perform other administrative tasks against a MySQL database.
  • MySQL for Excel - MySQL for Excel enables users to import, export and edit MySQL data using Microsoft Excel 

Downloading/Installing MySQL on Windows


Navigate to http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/windows/installer/, scroll to the middle of the page and click on the applicable link, as shown in the picture below.

For the windows installer you can download the 32-bit only installer; or, the 32- and 64-bit installer. To download MySQL you must have an Oracle account. Once you log in you can download the desired file.


After you download the file be sure to verify the integrity of the file you downloaded before you install it. This ensures the file was not tampered with.To learn more about verifying the integrity of a file you can read Verifying a Package Integrity at: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/verifying-package-integrity.html.
When you are ready, launch the installer. A message displays asking you to wait while the MySQL Installer finishes the current process. Then the Welcome screen displays.


After you click "Install MySql Products" you need to Accept the GNU General Public License to continue. You can then choose the setup type. I chose the "Full" setup type to install everything.


The software checks the system requirements to install the selected components. If you indicated that you wanted to install MySQL for Excel the components needed are added before the list of MySQL products (to be installed) displays.


When the Installation Progress window, shown above, displays click Execute to install all of the products. As you click through the windows presented by the MySQL installer the MySQL Server Configuration window displays. The option you select depends on whether the environment is for an individual or company. For example, a company might install MySQL on a Server. Developers then install MySQL and select the Developer Machine option. They can then connect to the server to get or upload database changes.


As you click through the MySQL Server Configuration another window allows you to set the MySQL Root password, as shown below.


The Root account is the account automatically used when MySQL starts. Another MySQL Server Configuration window asks if you want to start MySQL Server as a Windows Service, as shown below. Accept this default. On Windows, the recommended way to run MySQL is to install it as a Windows service. This allows MySQL to automatically start/stop as you run/close Windows.

Note that once MySQL is installed you can view the MySQL Service by right-clicking My Computer -> Manage to display the Computer Management window. You can then expand Services and Applications and select Services to view the MySQL Service and start/stop the service, as shown below.


Using MySQL Workbench


Once the Installation Complete window displays click the Finish button to display the MySQL Workbench, shown below. Notice under MySQL Connections you are logged in using the root account and, in this example, I am using the Localhost server on port 3306 (localhost:3306). Since I used the "Full" installation option the "world" and "sakila" sample databases were installed. If I double-click the Local Instance MySQL56 connection I can view all of the schemas (or databases) that exist.


The following picture shows the window that displays once the local instance connection is clicked. Notice, under schemas, you see sakila and world. You also see the information_schema and the performance_schema. The information_schema stores data about the databases. For example, information_schema includes a Tables table that stores the names of all tables in all of the schemas (i.e., all tables in the sakila database, all tables in the world database, etc.).


The Performance_schema tracks MySQL Server performance-related events such as what user accounts are logged into what host, the number of current connections and total connections, event stages (i.e., preparing for alter table, altering table, committing alter table to storage engine, etc. along with wait times, etc.) and other similar data. From the main window you can click the plus sign beside MySQL Connections to create a connection to a schema.


When you click the plus sign the Setup New Connection window displays. You can add a name to the Connection Name field and enter the schema to be selected for the connection, as shown below. If you click the Test Connection button you are prompted for the root account password. You can use the Save password in vault option to store the password.Click the OK button to create the connection.



The new connection created displays beside the Local instance connection. If you click on the "sakila_full" option (highlighted in the picture below) you will view the model and other objects for the sakila database.


The following picture shows what the Workbench looks like when a model is opened. By default the model displays on the EER Diagram Tab. This Tab shows the Entity Relationship Diagram, which displays tables and views and their relationships to one another. As you view the picture below notice the red box (on the left) highlights the Bird's Eye view of the Entity Relationship Diagram. The Toolbar (shown by a red arrow) is used to add or delete tables and views, create relationships among database objects and perform other tasks.


Database objects include the tables that hold data, views of table data, functions (that return a value when executed), etc. Each table field is associated with a data type. For example, the field that holds the date a product was purchased is associated with a date data type so the system knows the type of data to be stored . You can learn more about data types here: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/data-type-overview.html.

As previously mentioned other database objects include Views. Views enable developers to define what data to display by selecting table fields from two or more tables. For example, the sakila database has the "rental" table, which has the following table fields: rental_id, rental_date, inventory_id, customer_id, return_date, staff_id and last_update. If you view the data in this table it looks like the picture below.


Suppose you work for a rental store. The manager wants to know the first and last name of each customer who rented a film; and, the title of the film. The above table doesn't provide that information. But, you can create a view that combines the rental table, the customer table, the inventory and the film table to create the desired details. Instead of displaying the customer_id field you can display the customer first_name field and customer last_name field from the customer table. You can use the film_id in the inventory table to display the film "title" from the film table. You would omit fields that contain data the manager doesn't want to see. Once you create the view, the manager can display the results to see the desired information. A screen capture of the SQL query and results is included below.


Just a quick note about the above query. The Left() function is used to return the first 11 characters from the left so only the date shows. AS 'Rental Date' defines the name of the column. And, Inner Join is used to combine the records from two tables whenever there are matching values in both tables. (This article is outdated but still provides a great overview of inner joins: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa213234.) The following paragraphs discuss SQL queries in greater detail.

Introducing the Structured Query Language (SQL)


The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) defined a series of standards that defines the framework for the SQL environment, how SQL statements are to be executed (i.e., using a SQL-agent), data types to be used and the standards discuss other features needed to build, manage and query a SQL database environment. Below is a list of the ANSI standards.
  • ISO/IEC 9075-1:2011 [2012], Information technology - Database languages—SQL -Part 1: Framework
  • ISO/IEC 9075-2:2011, Information technology—Database languages—SQL—Part 2: Foundation
  • ISO/IEC 9075-3:2008, Information technology—Database languages—SQL—Part 3: Call-Level Interface
  • ISO/IEC 9075-4:2011, Information technology—Database languages—SQL—Part 4: Persistent Stored Modules
  • ISO/IEC 9075-9:2008, Information technology—Database languages—SQL—Part 9: Management of External Dat
  • INCITS/ISO/IEC 9075-5-1999, Information Technology - Database Languages - SQL - Part 5: Host Language Bindings
  • ISO/IEC 9075-10:2008, Information technology - Database languages - SQL - Part 10: Object Language Binding
  • ISO/IEC 9075-11:2011, Information technology—Database languages—SQL—Part 11: Information and Definition Schemas
  • ISO/IEC 9075-13:2008, Information technology—Database languages—SQL—Part 13: SQL Routines and Types using the Java Programming Language
  • ISO/IEC 9075-14:2011, Information technology—Database languages—SQL—Part 14: XML-Related Specifications

Vendors who implement a SQL database incorporate some or all of the features outlined in the above standards. Examples of database vendors include Microsoft (SQL Server), Oracle (Oracle & MySQL), PostgreSQL, etc. Some vendors add new features not outlined in any of the standards. For example, Microsoft SQL Server uses Transact-SQL and Oracle uses SQL* Plus (PL/SQL). Both of these languages have been extended to include data types and other features not outlined in any of the ANSI standards.  MySQL and Microsoft Access both use SQL; however, these implementations have also been extended. For example, Microsoft Access 2007 supports both ANSI SQL wildcard characters and wildcard characters specific to the Microsoft Access database engine. And, Microsoft Access supports data types not supported by ANSI SQL. These customizations are one of the key reasons data cannot be directly shared between databases.

Getting Started With SQL Statements 


In the business world users typically use an application to add or edit records in a database. (Deleting data, from a user interface, is usually not allowed. Instead, records are typically marked as inactive so that reports ran yesterday can be run at anytime in the future--with the understanding that inactive records are outdated.)

Some companies may use a tool like Crystal Reports to create interactive reports that enable users to select options to view the desired data. Users can easily generate ad hoc, custom reports that can be exported to Excel, PDF or other popular formats. I have also seen an environment where Microsoft Excel was used to connect to a database to view data.

Using Workbench to Generate Statements


When you launch Workbook you can right-click on a schema table to access a short-cut menu. You can then select an option to have Workbench generate a statement for you. For example, right-click on the rental table under the sakila schema as shown below

Select "Select Rows - Limit 1000" as shown in the above picture. The statement displays on the rental Tab. The results display in the Results grid (as shown below) provided the Results Grid button is selected. If the Form Editor button is selected the first record displays in a Form. You can then use the form buttons to navigate through the records. If the Field Types button is selected a window displays the name of each field and the data type associated with the field.

The bottom Output window (shown below) tells the action performed and the message returned by the database. If the statement resulted in an error, an error message displays in this window. However, in the following example the statement was successful so the number of records (or rows) returned displays.


Writing SQL Statements - Directly Interacting With the Database


There are two ways to access the Query tab to execute SQL statements in Workbench. You can select a database connection when you first launch Workbench, as previously discussed. Or, if you are already using Workbench you can select Database -> Connect to Database... When the Connect to Database window displays click the OK button to access the Query Tab.


You can create SQL statements to create a database, table or view. You can also create statements to view, insert or delete data as well as perform a number of other tasks.  If you want to view data stored in a database there are two values you MUST know: 1. the name of the schema (or database) that holds the data; and 2. the name of the table that holds the data. If you only know these two values but do not know the name of the table fields you can write a Select All statement like this:

SELECT * from schema.table 


Following is an example: 

SELECT * FROM sakila.actor

Once you add the Select All statement to the Query1 Tab you must click the Execute button to prompt Workbench to perform the requested action. Once the statement is executed the results display in the Results Grid below the Query1 tab. If you know the name(s) of the table fields that hold the data you want to view, you can add table field names instead of using the wildcard (*). For example, the following SQL statement displays data from the first_name and last_name fields of the actor table in the sakila database.

SELECT first_name, last_name FROM sakila.actor

Notice each column name is separated by a comma. However, a comma is not added between the last column name and the FROM keyword.


You can write an Insert Statement to add a new record to a database table. The Insert Statement is written as follows:

INSERT INTO sakila.actor(`actor_id`,`first_name`,`last_name`) VALUES (201,'Will','Smith');

The statement begins with the "Insert Into" keywords. The schema.table name is added along with a list of the table field names in the order in which the fields appear in the table. The "Values" keyword is added followed by the values to be inserted.  In the above example, the table has a TIMESTAMP field. Notice a value is not provided. This is because the database automatically adds the date/time when the record is created. And, although the previous example shows the actor_id field (which is the primary key field) corporate databases are usually configured to automatically add this value when a record is created.

The Update Statement is used to change one or more value(s) that already exist in the database. To change a single value for a record the update statement appears as shown in the picture below.


The keyword "Update" is used followed by the schema.table name. The keyword "Set" is then added followed by the table field name and the updated value. The "Where" keyword is added followed by the name of the id field (i.e., actor_id in this example) and the value of the record to be changed, as shown in the picture below. The "Where" keyword and actor_id combination ensures only a single record is returned (i.e., where actor_id = 1. Note that primary key values are also unique.)

If multiple values are to be updated, all table fields are added along with the applicable values. However, note that the id of a record should never be changed once data has been added. This is because the existing records (in this example film records associated with the actor) will loose their association since records are associated by the id or primary key field.


You can delete a record using the Delete Statement as follows:

DELETE FROM `sakila`.`actor`
WHERE actor_id = 1;

With the Delete Statement the "Where" keyword works the same way as it does for the Update Statement. This means you indicate the id of the record to be deleted.You then execute the statement to delete the record.

Writing SQL Statements - Using an Application To Interact With the Database


When building a business application routines (or stored procedures or sprocs) are used to execute transactions. In addition variables, holders for an unknown value, are also used. For example, if a user wants to update a record; it is unknown what record the user will select to update. Therefore, a list of records is presented to the user. The user then selects the record to be updated. The id (or primary key) of the selected record is passed to the applicable routine. The routine returns the result. In this example, the Select statement is referred to as a Select with Reference statement. The following picture shows the statement in the top portion of the picture, the results in the Results Grid, and the output in the Output window.


When using the Select with Reference statement the first thing that you do is set the value for the variable. In this example the variable is called @actor_id_to_select. Once we set the value of @actor_id_to_select the database automatically replaces every occurrence of the @actor_id_to_select variable with the assigned value. As previously mentioned, variables are used when a value is not known ahead of time. Using this approach enables users to select any valid (value that exists in the database) value to retrieve records that meet a specified condition. A select statement like the one above is typically used when a user wants to retrieve a specific record to update or add new details not previously supplied.

Additional Information


In this article we discussed database basics, the ANSI SQL standards and we discussed how to install and use MySQL as well as write SQL statements. If you would like to learn more about database programming and like to read books I recommend Murach at the following URL: http://www.murach.com/books/database.htm You can also download SQL query examples to follow the tutorials outlined in the book.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Getting Started with Google App Engine & Cloud SQL/NoSQL Datastore (Java)

One of Google's more recent endeavors is its offering of solutions that enable developers to create large-scale applications at reasonable prices. Whether you're interested in developing a game that might go viral; or, creating apps to become more skilled in working with "big data" you'll likely want to check out Google App Engine. This article provides an overview of what Google App Engine is, what is has to offer and how to start using it.

What Google App Engine Is


Google App Engine is a web-based, hosting platform that delivers cloud services. Developers can configure a development environment to connect to App Engine; and, make use of its many features to build scalable applications that deliver on demand. Developers can create an application using Python, Java, PHP or the Go programming language on a local development environment. The application can then be deployed to Google App Engine where it can be made available to the general public. Or, a developer can limit access to the application. For example, a developer might want to invite other developers to access, use and update the application before it goes public. If an application is to only target a specific group of users; that can also be defined using App Engine. App Engine also offers powerful backend solutions that can grow as an application increases in popularity. To get started you need a Google account.

What Google App Engine Has to Offer


Google App Engine features are grouped into 5 categories as follows:  Main, Data, Administration, Billing and Resources. These features are discussed in more detail below.

When you first log into Google App Engine your list of applications displays. If you have not created any applications the page is blank and you are only presented with a Create Application button.




From Google App Engine you can view reports, logs and even perform tasks such as "enable datastore" to use Google App Engine's datastore (discussed later) for big data.The Google App Engine features, including its datastore, are discussed later in this article we walk through the steps to create and deploy an application to the Google App Engine and then use Google App Engine features to monitor and manage the application.

Main


Features under the Main heading provide insight into an application deployed to Google App Engine. The App Engine dashboard lists transactions and usage hours (as shown below) as well as current load and error.
In addition, you can view information about the number of instances (of an application) running, a log of items including info, debug, warnings, errors and critical. In addition a list of the versions of an application running linked to the instances and the ability to split traffic. You can also view a list of scheduled tasks (called Cron Jobs), view tasks queues defined using the Java Task Queue configuration file or the Python Task Queue configuration file. You can also view your usage versus quota data.

Data


The Data option provides the ability to manage, view and search data in a datastore and create indexes.  Developers can also backup and restore data from Google Cloud Storage. 

Google App Engine offers three options to store data as follows: App Engine Datastore, Google Cloud SQL and Google Cloud Storage. Google Cloud SQL is a serve that let you connect your application to a traditional, relational SQL database. The Google Cloud Storage, on the other hand, is a storage service (similar to Google drive) that lets developers store files along with the files' metadata.

The App Engine datastore is schemaless, which makes it more flexible than a relational database. The datastore stores data in a structure similar to that of a computer's file system in that it uses a parent/child hierarchy. The datastore is designed to automatically scale by distributing data, as necessary, as it writes to the datastore. To facilitate fast data searching queries are performed against pre-built indexes. As a result some queries that can be performed against a relational database (such as joins and subqueries) cannot be performed against the datastore.




Two key buzz words associated with cloud services, particularly when large amounts of data are involved, are availability and scalability. Availability defines the ability for you/users to access your app was needed; considering that problems may cause service interruptions such as maintenance (to apply software updates, etc.); or, a transaction that crashes the server. Scalability refers to your application's ability to spread across multiple servers and balance the load (user requests) so the application performs the same whether it has 10 or 10 million records. 

Administration


The Administration includes the Application Settings, which provides the Application Title, Application Identifier (App Id), Service Account name and the application URL.  If you create an application with a server component you will also see a Google APIs Console Project Number, as shown in the picture below.


 If you click the Project Number link, the project opens in the Developers Console, as shown below. This provides an opportunity to enable one or more APIs (such as the Google Cloud Messaging for Android API).


Users can also select the Credentials option to create an API key because the APIs in the Google Developers Console require that requests include a unique project identifier to monitor traffic, enforce quotas, and handle billing. Developers can create a Server key, Browser key, Android key and iOS key (as shown below).


Account Settings is also where you go to disable or delete an application as well as enable or disable datastore writes. You can also duplicate an application and enable Cloud Integration.

Billing


The Billing section provides access to your Billing Status, which is enabled when you create a Google Cloud Project.

Resources


Resources includes links to documentation and FAQs. It also provides links to the Google App Engine Developer Forum, a link to Google App Engine SDKs, access to the Google App Engine status and access to support.


How to Start Using Google App Engine


To use Google App Engine you'll need to first install Eclipse and the latest Android Development Tools (ADT) Plugin if you have not done so already. If you need more information on installing Eclipse you can review my previous article titled, "Programming Mobile Apps for Android With Eclipse". 

If you have already set up your development environment, you will want to make sure you are using the Eclipse IDE 4.2 or higher and make sure you have upgraded to the latest Android Development Tools (ADT) Plugin. (Google Update Site for Eclipse 4.2 - http://dl.google.com/eclipse/plugin/4.2 )

Once you are running the latest Eclipse and have installed the latest ADT Plugin you are ready to configure your environment for Google App Engine.

 

Get the Java Runtime Environment


Once you have installed and configured Eclipse you should download and install the Java Runtime Environment (aka Java Virtual Machine) version 7 from http://www.java.com/en/download/. Installing the Java app is pretty straight forward; however, if you need more instruction you can visit https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/java/gettingstarted/setup.



Also download and install the Java Platform (JDK) from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html.

 

Get the Google App Engine Tools

There are several different ways to install the Google App Engine tools. The Google Plugin for Eclipse provides a way to install the Google App Engine tools. However, you must first determine the correct version of the plugin needed based on the version of the development environment installed on your computer. To determine the version of your development environment launch Eclipse. Next, select Help then About ADT to display the About ADT window, shown below. Next select the Eclipse button, outlined with a red box below.

The About ADT Features window (shown below) displays. This window shows the version of the Eclipse Java Development environment and the Eclipse Platform (4.2 in this example). In this example I would install the Plugin for Eclipse 3.8/4.2 (Juno).



To install the Google Plugin for Eclipse, Eclipse must be running. From the main menu select Help, then select Install New Software to display the Install window shown below.



Next copy the URL under the "Direct Plugin Link" column.



Paste the link in the Work with: field, as shown below. A list of the plugin tools displays. You can then select the tools to be installed.




Notice you have the option to install Maven tools. You also have the option to install the Google Web Toolkit (GWT), which can be used to build application browser-based Ajax applications and compile the code to optimized JavaScript.  You can use this approach to get Maven and GWT. Or, you can can download Maven (as discussed later) and then install and configure it. And then download, install and configure GWT by accessing the following website: http://www.gwtproject.org/download.html

Once you have selected the desired tools click the Next button and follow the wizard prompts to install the selected tools. For more information see https://developers.google.com/eclipse/docs/getting_started. Once you have installed the Google Plugin for Eclipse you are now able to create even more project types, as shown in the following picture.



And, you can also access some cloud resources from within Eclipse, as shown below. Notice, in this example, the "Select App Id" window displays a list of App Ids available from the Google App Engine hosting site. And, notice the bottom of the Select App Id window shows the username used to log into the Google App Engine.


Google Cloud SDK


The Google Cloud SDK provides a way to connect to the Google Cloud and download and install the Google App Engine SDK. Once you have downloaded and installed the Google Cloud SDK you can follow the command line prompts as outlined in the Installation and Quick Start section at https://developers.google.com/cloud/sdk/. You will have the option to install the Google App Engine application and define the language you will use (i.e., Java, Python and PHP or Go) to build applications. The following picture shows the prompts that display once the "install.bat" file (in the google-could-sdk folder) is executed.



Once the Google Cloud SDK is installed and configured you are asked if you want the system PATH to be updated so you can use the Cloud SDK more easily. Press Y to have the Cloud SDK installer update the system PATH. If the installer is not able to update the system Path, Windows users may manually update the PATH variable.



You can then use a command line tool to perform various tasks. You can also invoke the "help" command to view a list of tasks and related commands that can be executed using the Cloud SDK.


Google App Engine SDK for Java


The Google App Engine SDK includes the components developers need to create applications to be hosted by the Google App Engine. The SDK includes the .jar file and documentation for the App Engine API. And, it supports the functionality needed to test your application before it is deployed to the Google App Engine server. For example, the SDK includes the com.google.appengine.tools package, which includes the Google App Engine Tools API that can be embedded in IDEs to test and deploy Google App Engine applications. In addition, it provides the appcfg tool so developers can execute commands using the command line interface. The picture below shows some of the commands that can be executed using appcfg:




The appengine and apphosting API classes are located in the :\appengine-java-sdk-1.9.7\src\user\appengine-api-1.0-sdk-1.9.7-src\com\google folder. These classes are used when building a Google App Engine connected application.


There is a Google App Engine SDK for PHP, Python, Java and the Go programming languages. Developers can download the SDK that supports the desired language. (For this article I have downloaded and installed the Google App Ending SDK for Java.) You can download, unzip and install the Google App Engine for Java from https://developers.google.com/appengine/downloads where you will select the the link under the Package column.


This downloads the source files for the App Engine and includes tutorials in the folder called "demos". Most of the folders include a README file that provides instructions. However, note that if you plan to use Maven, it will download the Google App Engine SDK files and the source files for the Google App Engine tutorials.


Get Maven

Maven is a tool that can be used to download a project and the related project files. Maven projects include the pom.xml file in the root directory and pom.xml files in the subdirectories. The pom.xml file in the root directory defines the structure of the project. As shown in the following picture the pom.xml root directory file includes the project's groupID (com.google.appengine.demos), artifactId (guestbook) and version (1.0-SNAPSHOT).


Notice the pom.xml file (above) also defines the modules that makeup the project, as shown in the following picture where the modules are: guestbook-war and guestbook-ear.


To use Maven you will have to download it, install it and and then configure it.. To get Maven you will download the applicable file. For example, I downloaded the apache-maven-3.2.2-bin.zip file from http://maven.apache.org/download.cgi. If you download the zipped file, you can extract the zip file contents to a location on your hard drive. Since I am running windows I unzipped the files to the "c:/program files" directory.

Next you will need to configure the environment variables. Since I am using windows I had to access the System Properties window, and then select the Advanced tab. I then selected Environment Variables, as shown below.



You can then add the variables necessary to use Maven.The following window shows the variables I added as outlined in the Readme.txt file in the root folder of the apache-maven-3.2.2 folder created when I unzipped the apache-maven-3.2.2-bin.zip file.


Once you have followed the instructions to install Maven; you will want to verify that it is installed correctly. To verify Maven is installed you do the following:

From the command prompt type: mvn -v, as shown in the picture below. If Maven is correctly installed the Maven version, along with the other information shown below, displays.




Once you confirm that Maven is installed correctly you can follow the instructions outlined in the following location:  https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/java/gettingstarted/creating#creating_the_project to get the project files. After you complete the instructions the following messages display and the project is downloaded to the location you specified.


To execute a command for a Maven project you must first navigate to the root folder of the project. As shown below, I want to execute commands for the guestbook project (located at c:\users\owner\documents\projects\guestbook). Therefore, I first used the command to change to the guestbook directory. Then I executed my commands.


Maven's functionality is built from a variety of plugins. To learn more about Maven plugins you can visit the following link: http://maven.apache.org/plugins/. The Maven Documentation site is located at: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/Index
 

Testing Your Development Environment

Once you have everything set up you can test your environment by building a project that generates sample code.  To begin, log into the Google App Engine Dashboard at https://appengine.google.com/ . If you have not created any application your dashboard looks like the one below. Click the Create Application button, highlighted below with a red box.


When the Create an Application webpage displays add an Application Identifier in the applicable field and be sure to click the Check Availability button.



 If the Identifier you added is not available: Or, if the name you entered does not meet the applicable criteria an error message, like the one shown below, displays. You must make another selection until you enter an Identifier that is not in use and meets the naming criteria.

Sorry, "test" is invalid. Application Identifier must be between 6 and 30 characters. Lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens are acceptable characters. Must start with a letter. Trailing hyphens are prohibited.

Next enter an Application Title and then click the Create Application button at the button of the page. The application is created and is added to the dashboard. Next, launch Eclipse and select File ->New -> Project to display the New Project windows. Expand the Google folder and select Web Application Project then click Next.

The Create a Web Application Project window, shown below, displays. If you installed the Google Web Toolkit, that option should be available. You should also have a Use Google App Engine checkbox to indicate that you want to use Google App Engine. Enter a Project Name and a Package name for the new application. Leave the Use Google App Engine checkbox checked.


Under the Identifiers for Google App Engine section select the Use App ID option. Then click Browse.  The Select App ID window displays. Select the Application Identifier you created then click the OK button. Make sure the Generate Project Sample Code checkbox is checked.


Once all required fields are completed, click the Finish button. The new project displays in the Project Explorer window.


You can now deploy the application and it should work. Right click on the project to be deployed to Google App Engine. Select Google -> Deploy to App Engine, as shown below.


The Deploy window displays.


Accept the defaults and click the Deploy button. The Deploying window, shown below, displays.





Once the application is deployed to Google App Engine, the Web Application Starter page displays, as shown below.




Enter a name in the Please enter your name box then click Send. The Google App Engine server replies, as shown below.

If your starter application worked; congratulations your development environment is configured correctly and you can begin developing scalable applications built on Google App Engine. Below is a list of resources you can access to learn more about Google App Engine.



https://developers.google.com//cloud
https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/whatisgoogleappengine 
Google App Engine Project Page: http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/
Google App Engine Issue Tracker http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/list
Submit an Issue: https://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/wiki/FilingIssues?tm=3