Ever needed to close a bunch of open HTML tags from a string you are manipulating in PHP? I have!

Specifically in WordPress, I was using the_excerpt() function and needed to allow some tags in the excerpt, unfortunately I ended up having a bunch of un-closed tags that broke my layout. To solve this, I created a function that checks every character in the text for tags.

Once an open tag is found, it is added to an array. When the closing tag appears, I remove the associated tag from the array. The process continues until the loop goes through all of the text. Finally, if there are open tags still store in the array, I reverse the array and return the closing tags.

function closing_tags($str) {
    // Check the length of the string
    $strlen = strlen($str);
    // Initialize the variables
    $add_tag = false;
    $rm_tag = false;
    $add_tmp = '';
    $rm_tmp = '';
    $tag_arr[] = '';
    $closing_text = '';

    // Loop through all the characters using the string length
    for ($i = 0; $i <= $strlen; $i++) {
        // Get the character at the current pointer location
        $char = substr($str, $i, 1);

        // Check if it's a open tag <>
        if ($char === '<') {
            $add_tag = true;
            $add_tmp = '';
        }
        // Check if it's a closing tag </>
        else if ($char === '/') {
            $add_tag = false;
            $rm_tag = true;
        }
        // Check if end of the tag or a space in the tag (tag attributes are not needed)
        // If the end of an open tag, add it to the array
        // If the end of a closing tag, find the open tag in the array and remove it
        else if ($char === ' ' || $char === '>') {
            if ($add_tag) {
                $add_tag = false;
                $tag_arr[] = $add_tmp;
            }
            else if ($rm_tag) {
                $rm_tag = false;
                array_splice($tag_arr, array_search($rm_tmp, $tag_arr));
            }
        }
        // If tags haven't ended, keep appending the character to create the tag
        else if ($add_tag) {
            $add_tmp.= $char;
        }
        else if ($rm_tag) {
            $rm_tmp.= $char;
        }
    }

    // Count how many open tags there are
    $arr_size = count($tag_arr);

    // If there are open tags, reverse the array and output them
    // Otherwise, return the original string
    if ($arr_size > 0) {
        $reversed = array_reverse($tag_arr);
        for ($j = 0; $j < $arr_size; $j++) {
            $closing_text.= "</" . $reversed[$j] . ">";
        }

        return $str . "..." . $closing_text;
    }
    else {
        return $str . "...";
    }
}

Ever need to temporarily, or permanently send visitors to a new domain without asking them to click a new link? There are ways to do this that do not even cause the page to reload. If you are using Apache and have high level SSH access, you can achieve this by editing the configuration files of the specified domains. Alternatively, you can also do a redirect by editing the .htaccess file located in the home directory of your server.

Apache Redirect

This option requires a high level of access to your server. You can try and edit the configuration files using an FTP client, however I would recommend using the command line and SSH into the server to do this. The following directions are assuming you have SSH access.

Locate your “sites-available” directory and edit the .conf file of the website you choose to redirect. Your address may look something similar to this:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/somesite.com.conf

The file may look something like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin some@email.com
    ServerName somewebsite.com
    ServerAlias www.somewebsite.com

    DocumentRoot /var/www/public_html
    <Directory />
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
    <Directory /var/www/somewebsite.com/public_html>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

You’ll want to change the lines ServerName and ServerAlias to the following code:

Redirect /oldsite.com http://newsite.com/

If you want to redirect the entire domain, so that oldsite.com/somefolder now links to newsite.com/somefolder, simply use a forward slash instead of the old domain address.

Redirect / http://newsite.com/

Finally, depending on the type of redirect you want to give the browser (301 or 302), is where you want to add the permanent keyword to your code. If you want it to be temporary (302), leave the line as is. To be permanent, you can use either one of these:

Option 1:

Redirect permanent / http://newsite.com/

Option 2:

Redirect 301 / http://newsite.com/

.htaccess Redirect

What if you don’t have access to the configuration files? .htaccess is a much simpler, and safer option to manipulate. In the home directory of your server, you should find the .htaccess file. If you do not see it, your FTP client may not show hidden files. If the hidden files option is on and you still do not see it, you will need to create an .htaccess file and upload it. There is nothing special about this file, you simply need to name the extension as .htaccess and add the rules within it as needed.

The following rewrite rules use RegEx (regular expressions) to test the URL if it should be redirected Code 301 is a permanent redirection, whereas code 302 is temporary. If you want to redirect the entire domain,  you would want to use the following code. The single forward slash says to forward the entire directory.

Redirect 301 / http://newsite.com/

With the following code, only the index.html would be redirected. You may want to do this if you still want access to your files under the old domain. For example, this allows you to still navigate to oldsite.com/somefolder. You can use either option:

Option 1:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(index\.html)?$ http://somesite.com [R=301,L]

Option 2:

Redirect /index.html http://newsite.com/somefolder/

If you aren’t that well versed in hosting services, let me point you in the direction of my favorite hosting provider: DigitalOcean. If you don’t really know what you are looking at, I recommend you focus on DO’s cost and speed. At $5 USD/month, 20GB (SSD) of space… What more can you ask for? If you need to increase space, it’s very simple, however you cannot downgrade! So start small and upgrade as needed. Each server is called a “droplet” (cute naming association with the brand).

I followed all of the tutorials at Digital Ocean for the 16.04 Ubuntu installation, I will be a bit more specific to how I personally tackled my set-up and the software used.

Tools:

You are not required to use these tools, but I prefer them, and specific commands/functions may only apply to these programs.

• Git (free)
• SublimeText ($70)
• WinSCP (free)

Step 1: Sign-up

If you are just interested in testing out the services, the first $10 is on me! Click this link and you will automatically have a credit applied to your account.

Sign-up for an account on DigitalOcean using the referral link, payment information is only used for confirmation, you aren’t charged anything until the end of the month or when you run out of credit.

Step 2: Create Droplet

If you are planning on using your server to host multiple WordPress accounts, DO NOT use “One-click apps”, you will only be able to do a single install.

• Distribution: Ubuntu 16.04.1 x 64
• Size: $5/mo
• Datacenter region: (whatever is closest for you)
• Block storage: N/A
• Additional options: Backups (if this is just to play around, don’t check this option, but later on I would recommend turning it on)
• Hostname: (pick a name that is relevant to what you are hosting, it is unique to your account. I chose ubuntu-512)

After creating, you should receive an email telling you what your droplet’s IP address is, and the associated password of the root account.

Step 3: Run Git

If you are on a Mac, you can use the terminal as it is already set up. However, in order to use SSH in Windows we need to download a new software. In the DigitalOcean tutorials, they use Putty, but I prefer to use Git Bash (see tools).  After you have downloaded the .exe,  run the installer using all of the default settings unless you know what you are doing.

Open up “Git Bash” and enter the following command into the console:

ssh root@YOUR_DROPLET_ADDRESS

You’ll be asked if you are sure that you want to continue connecting, type yes. You will then be asked to enter the password that was sent to you. If you copy the password from the email, you will be able to paste it into the console by right-clicking. You will not be able to see what you are typing into the password field (no *** or any other characters will appear). Press enter. If it is correct, you will be prompted to change the password.

Step 4: Add User

Follow DigitalOcean’s tutorial on how to set up a new account that you will use, their directions are clear. Continue to use Git Bash for these commands.

[more posts to come!]

References:

• How To Connect To Your Droplet with SSH
• Initial Server Setup with Ubuntu 16.04
• How To Install Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) stack on Ubuntu 16.04
• How To Install and Secure phpMyAdmin on Ubuntu 16.04
• How To Set Up Apache Virtual Hosts on Ubuntu 16.04
• How To Set Up vsftpd for a User’s Directory on Ubuntu 16.04
• How To Install WordPress with LAMP on Ubuntu 16.04
• How To Migrate WordPress from Shared Hosting to a Cloud Server with Zero Downtime

When I first started out in web development, I didn’t know anything about web hosting. All I knew was that I needed a domain name, and a ‘server’ to host that domain. I started on Yahoo’s Geocities (hello 2008!) and only knew that when you uploaded an .html file, a webpage would appear. When Geocities closed at the end of 2009, I was forced to look into a new hosting provider. Knowing nothing, this is where GoDaddy came in.

I paid $67 USD for the first year, here was the rough breakdown:

• $48 –  Economy Hosting
• $5 – Certified Domain
• $5 – Business Registration
• $7 – Private Registration Services
• $2 – Domain Name

Certified domain was/is useless and the business registration I never used. The private registration in theory seems like a nice idea to protect my information.. But can cause legality issues if ever there is a dispute. Sadly, I didn’t understand this, and have been paying for all of those services for the past 5 years. I also ended up increasing my hosting to the Deluxe package (doubling the cost) as I wanted to host multiple domains.

The hosting initially served its purpose and I started to install multiple WordPress sites. Unfortunately, that is when all my websites slowed down. I created an incident report within a week of upgrading and complained about how slow the service was.

They answered back with a generic response about how I can use GZIP, minifying files, image compression, disabling FasterCGI and this:

Because you are in a shared environment, there will be times when the traffic to your server will be high and performance issues may persist. This is typical for websites across all providers of shared hosting in an environment such as yours. As we work to improve our environment, here are some tips that you can use to improve your website’s optimization for page load speed […]

I can’t remember if I found there to be an improvement, but I definitely had been experiencing major latency issues for the better part of two years. However, due to my ignorance of server maintenance, I simply assumed it was my ISP acting up.

That being said, GoDaddy’s phone service has always been good. Additionally, they call you yearly to see if you are satisfied with their service. Usually when they call, my latency issues are far from my thoughts, so I have had no complaints.

After 3 years of using GoDaddy’s slow hosting, I finally decided to make the switch to a VPS (Virtual Private Server), specifically DigitalOcean. If I could, I would transfer my domains to DigitalOcean, however they don’t offer that service. Ultimately, I don’t mind GoDaddy’s interface, and the price of the domains aren’t that bad, so I am going to leave all of my domains there.  All that is left is to point the DNS to the appropriate server.