I just had a stream of objects I wanted to sort and convert to a list. Optionally it should also be limited to a maximum number of entries. Piece of cake with Java 8:

Stream<T> stream = collection.stream().sorted(comparator);
if (max >= 0) {
  stream.limit(max);
}
List<T> result = stream.collect(Collectors.toList());

Or so I thought... The code above throws an IllegalStateException at runtime, stating that the "stream has already been operated upon or closed".

The cause should be obvious. However it took me a while to find it, so I am posting it in case other people (possibly you when you came here via search engine) get stuck at the same place. Stream operations are very likely to return a different Stream object. The limit() method is such an example. In my code above, limit() operates on the stream and returns a limited stream. However I just throw away the returned stream and invoke collect() on the original stream, which was now already operated upon.

The solution is simple:

if (max >= 0) {
  stream = stream.limit(max);
}

UPDATE: It seems that starting with hardware version 2, these switches have an actual web interface. Too sad my ones are version 1. 😢

Frankly, I didn't expect it and I was somewhat disappointed when I found out that the TP-Link TL-SG108E Easy Smart Switch (and its little brother TL-SG105E) cannot be configured via web browser. And I was even more disappointed when I found out that, even though Linux and MacOS were listed on the retail box, the configuration tool Easy Smart Configuration Utility runs on Windows only. And they mean it! When started in a Windows VM, the utility does not see any switches.

So the devices are rather cheap for a smart switch, but they still come with a price: no web interface.

However, thanks to some help in the interwebs, I was finally able to run the Configuration Utility on Fedora Linux. It's not that easy, though.

Sass is a kind of precompiler for CSS that offers additional features like nested styles, variables or includes. The syntax of scss files is similar to standard CSS, so it's very easy to learn.

My goal is to:

• nicely integrate Sass into the Maven build process,
• use Jetty to see the web application with the compiled css files, and
• see changes to a Sass file live (without running Maven or restarting Jetty).

While upgrading my blog software Cilla to Java 8 and Hibernate 4, I found out that the old hibernate3-maven-plugin refused to create schema.sql files. Well, it wasn't really surprising. The name of the plugin already implied that the plugin won't play with the next major release of Hibernate.

I could not spot an official update of the plugin. Instead, I found Kai Moritz new Hibernate 4 maven plugin, which turned out to be very useful.

One key feature is to set up and initialize a local database for unit testing. I don't need this feature for Cilla (yet 😉). All I need is a hbm2ddl style generation of a SQL schema file for setting up new instances of my blog software from scratch. It turned out that the plugin was easily configured that way, and so it got almost a drop-in replacement for the old plugin.

This is what the <plugins> section of the project's pom file looks like:

<plugin>
    <groupId>de.juplo</groupId>
    <artifactId>hibernate4-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.4</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>export</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
    <configuration>
        <hibernateDialect>org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQL82Dialect</hibernateDialect>
        <target>NONE</target>
        <type>CREATE</type>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

With the target set to NONE, the schema.sql file is quietly generated while building the project. If set to SCRIPT, a copy will be dumped to stdout.

A CREATE type only generates create statements of the database. The default is BOTH, which creates drop and create statements.

Since no actual database is created, there is no need to add user, password and url parameters.

A list of all configuration options can be found here. The plugin is available at Maven Central.

The Android Device Monitor is not just an aid for debugging applications, but also allows to simulate GPS positions, so you won’t need to actually run around in the countryside for testing your GPS app. But where to get test data from?

I have recorded some of my hiking trips with my Garmin GPS 60, and saved them in Garmin’s proprietary gdb file format. These files contain waypoints, routes and also recorded tracks.

The Swiss Army Knife for GPS files, gpsbabel, comes in handy for converting a gdb file into the GPX file format that can be read by DDMS. This is the line I used for conversion:

gpsbabel -i gdb -f hike-track.gdb -o gpx,gpxver=1.1 -F hike-track.gpx

Note the gpxver=1.1 option, as DDMS is unable to read GPX 1.0 files.

After converting and loading the GPX file into DDMS, I can now send single waypoints as GPS events to the emulated device. But beyond that, I can also play back a recorded track, and simulate that I carry around the emulated device on that track. This is very useful for testing GPS apps.