All About PHP

Understanding the Zend Framework Basix

2012-12-05T23:12:00.000-08:00

What is the Zend Framework, exactly? The Zend Framework:

Is based on PHP
Is object-oriented
Uses the MVC paradigm
Has open source contributors
Has contributors who take responsibility for the fact that their code is not the intellectual property of someone else

It also aims to make your programming life easier, not just in general by instituting the MVC pattern, but also for specific things you tend to do all the time, like access databases or output to a PDF file.

Zend Framework components include:

Zend_Controller: This module provides the overall control for the application. It translates requests into specific actions and makes sure they get executed.

Zend_Db: This is based on PHP Data Objects (PDO) and provides access to databases in a generic way.

Zend_Feed: This makes it easy to consume RSS and Atom feeds.

Zend_Filter: This provides string-filtering functions, such as isEmail() and getAlpha().

Zend_InputFilter: To Zend_Filter, this is designed to work with arrays such as form inputs.

Zend_HttpClient: This enables you perform HTTP requests easily.

Zend_Json: This enables you to easily translate PHP objects into JavaScript Object Notation, and vice-versa.

Zend_Log: This provides general-purpose logging functionality.

Zend_Mail: This enables you to send text and multipart MIME email.

Zend_Mime: This is used by Zend_Mail to help decode MIME messages.

Zend_Pdf: This enables you to create new PDF documents, and load and edit existing PDF documents.

Zend_Search: This enables you to perform sophisticated searches on your own text. For example, you can build a search engine that returns results based on relevancy or other factors.

Zend_Service: Contains several submodules that provide easy access to many popular web service APIs, such as those provided by Amazon, Yahoo, Twitter, and Flicker.

Zend_View: This handles the view portion of the MVC pattern.

Zend_XmlRpc: This enables you to easily create an XML-RPC server and client.

.htaccess redirect url example

2012-11-06T22:33:00.002-08:00

If I want to direct the non-www version of whhsupport.com to the www version I would place the following code into my .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^whhsupport.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.whhsupport.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Conversely, if I want to direct the www version of whhsupport.com to the non-www version, I would enter the following code into my .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.whhsupport\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://whhsupport.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Mysql Fulltext search Video Example

2012-10-16T05:18:00.002-07:00

Php - Regular Expressions

2012-10-10T05:10:00.000-07:00

Regular expressions are nothing more than a sequence or pattern of characters itself. They provide the foundation for pattern-matching functionality.
Using regular expression you can search a particular string inside a another string, you can replace one string by another string and you can split a string into many chunks.
PHP offers functions specific to two sets of regular expression functions, each corresponding to a certain type of regular expression. You can use any of them based on your comfort.

POSIX Regular Expressions
PERL Style Regular Expressions

POSIX Regular Expressions:

The structure of a POSIX regular expression is not dissimilar to that of a typical arithmetic expression: various elements (operators) are combined to form more complex expressions.
The simplest regular expression is one that matches a single character, such as g, inside strings such as g, haggle, or bag.
Lets give explaination for few concepts being used in POSIX regular expression. After that we will introduce you wih regular expression related functions.

Brackets

Brackets ([]) have a special meaning when used in the context of regular expressions. They are used to find a range of characters.

Expression	Description
[0-9]	It matches any decimal digit from 0 through 9.
[a-z]	It matches any character from lowercase a through lowercase z.
[A-Z]	It matches any character from uppercase A through uppercase Z.
[a-Z]	It matches any character from lowercase a through uppercase Z.

The ranges shown above are general; you could also use the range [0-3] to match any decimal digit ranging from 0 through 3, or the range [b-v] to match any lowercase character ranging from b through v.

Quantifiers:

The frequency or position of bracketed character sequences and single characters can be denoted by a special character. Each pecial character having a specific connotation. The +, *, ?, {int. range}, and $ flags all follow a character sequence.

Expression	Description
p+	It matches any string containing at least one p.
p*	It matches any string containing zero or more p's.
p?	It matches any string containing zero or more p's. This is just an alternative way to use p*.
p{N}	It matches any string containing a sequence of N p's
p{2,3}	It matches any string containing a sequence of two or three p's.
p{2, }	It matches any string containing a sequence of at least two p's.
p$	It matches any string with p at the end of it.
^p	It matches any string with p at the beginning of it.

Examples:

Following examples will clear your concepts about matching chracters.

Expression	Description
[^a-zA-Z]	It matches any string not containing any of the characters ranging from a through z and A through Z.
p.p	It matches any string containing p, followed by any character, in turn followed by another p.
^.{2}$	It matches any string containing exactly two characters.
<b>(.*)</b>	It matches any string enclosed within <b> and </b>.
p(hp)*	It matches any string containing a p followed by zero or more instances of the sequence hp.

Predefined Character Ranges

For your programming convenience several predefined character ranges, also known as character classes, are available. Character classes specify an entire range of characters, for example, the alphabet or an integer set:

Expression	Description
[[:alpha:]]	It matches any string containing alphabetic characters aA through zZ.
[[:digit:]]	It matches any string containing numerical digits 0 through 9.
[[:alnum:]]	It matches any string containing alphanumeric characters aA through zZ and 0 through 9.
[[:space:]]	It matches any string containing a space.

Php Custom function - Difference between two dates,time and date

2012-09-19T22:43:00.000-07:00

The function presented in this page, CalculateDiff(), can be used to get the difference between 2 dates, time and date .

This function takes two parameters: the date1 and date2. It can be used various date / time formats: Unix Timestamp, or a string

Function that returns the difference between two date-time Returns an array containing a string with a textual reprezentation of the difference, and separately: the days, hours, minutes, seconds, total hours, total minutes, and total seconds.

<?
function CalculateDiff($date1, $date2) {
      // sets to use $date1 and $date2 as Unix Timestamp
    if (!is_int($date1))
        $date1 = strtotime($date1);
    if (!is_int($date2))
        $date2 = strtotime($date2);

    // if the difference is negative, the hours are from different days, and adds 1 day (in sec.)
    $diff = ($date2 >= $date1) ? $date2 - $date1 : 86400 + $date2 - $date1;

    // define the number of days, hours, minutes and seconds in difference
    $d = floor($diff / 86400);
    $h = floor(abs($diff - $d * 86400) / 3600);
    $m = floor(abs($diff - $d * 86400 - $h * 3600) / 60);
    $s = $diff % 60;

    // sets the words, singular or plural
    $dstr = ($d == 1) ? ' day ' : ' days ';
    $hstr = ($h == 1) ? ' hour ' : ' hours ';
    $mstr = ($m == 1) ? ' minute ' : ' minutes ';
    $sstr = ($s == 1) ? ' second ' : ' seconds ';

    // setings for the string added in textual reprezentation of the difference
    $sdiff_d = ($d != 0) ? $d . $dstr : '';
    $sdiff_h = ($h != 0) ? $h . $hstr : '';
    $sdiff_m = ($m != 0) ? $m . $mstr : '';

    return array(
        'diff' => $sdiff_d . $sdiff_h . $sdiff_m . $s . $sstr,
        'days' => $d,
        'hours' => $h,
        'min' => $m,
        'sec' => $s,
        'totalhours' => floor($diff / 3600),
        'totalmin' => floor($diff / 60),
        'totalsec' => $diff
    );
}
?>

Examples of CalculateDiff() function usage, with different date-time formats:

 <?php
        // difference between 2 times (in hours:min:sec)
        $rs1 = CalculateDiff('8:35:6', '8:55:34');         
        var_export($rs1);
    ?>

Result:
array (
    'diff' => '20 minutes 28 seconds ',
    'days' => 0, 'hours' => 0, 'min' => 20, 'sec' => 28,
    'totalhours' => 0, 'totalmin' => 20, 'totalsec' => 1228
)

 <?php
        // difference between a previous date-time and now
        $rs2 = CalculateDiff('07/19/2012 14:10:00', 'now');         
        var_export($rs2);
    ?>

Result:
array (
    'diff' => '61 days 16 hours 9 minutes 20 seconds ',
    'days' => 72, 'hours' => 16, 'min' => 9, 'sec' => 20,
    'totalhours' => 1744, 'totalmin' => 104649, 'totalsec' => 6278960
)

 <?php
        // difference between 2 date-times
        $rs3 = CalculateDiff('25 August 2012 14:10:00', '18-09-2012 08:25:00');         
        var_export($rs3);
    ?>

Result:
array (
    'diff' => '23 days 18 hours 15 minutes 0 seconds ',
    'days' => 23, 'hours' => 18, 'min' => 15, 'sec' => 0,
    'totalhours' => 570, 'totalmin' => 34215, 'totalsec' => 2052900
)

 <?php
        // difference between 2 date-time, with Timestamp
        $rs4 = CalculateDiff(1348012438, 1348029429);         
        var_export($rs4);
    ?>

Result:
array (
    'diff' => '4 hours 43 minutes 11 seconds ',
    'days' => 0, 'hours' => 4, 'min' => 43, 'sec' => 11,
    'totalhours' => 4, 'totalmin' => 283, 'totalsec' => 16991
)

Install Zend Framework on Ubuntu Linux

2012-09-19T00:07:00.000-07:00

Zend Framework on Ubuntu Linux

Install Zend Framework in Mac OS

2012-09-18T23:34:00.000-07:00

Installing zend Framework in Mac Os

Mysql Full-Text Search

2012-09-14T23:57:00.000-07:00

The Full text Search will produce results faster than Simply using “OR” in sql query.

Mysql Full-Text Search Basics

For start using mysql full text search for multi-word queries we need to understand its basics.Firstly it can’t be implemented on Mysql innoDB storage engine tables,So the First thing we must do is convert our innoDB table to MyISam Engine,which is quite easy can be done using phpmyadmin under the operations tab .

Change Storage Engine to MyISAM

After we have our tables on MyISAM storage engine we just need to add full text index to our selected columns on the desired table.Which is again can be done using PHPmy admin or Use the Query below to add Full Text INDEX To our Tables.The code Below will add Full text index to title and Description.columns

Add Full text Index to Table columns

ALTER TABLE inventory ADD FULLTEXT(title, description)

or using phpmyadmin as below.

Mysql Full Text Index on Single Column:

adding full text Index on Single column using PHPmyadmin

Mysql Full Text Index on Multiple Column:

Add Full text INDEX On multiple Columns

Note:The FULL text index on single column and pair of column is differet things.

Usage MySql Full Text Search for Multiword String:

So Now Our table Are ready for Full text Search as we have provided full index.Now to search for any word say :we wana search “Sujal Shah” then we’ll tyep Query as:

Searching using Full text Index.

SELECT *, MATCH(title, description) AGAINST ('Sujal Shah boy') AS artist
FROM artist_listing
ORDER BY artist DESC

The above query will match two columns title and description for Words “Sujal Shah boy” .For that to happen we need to have a multiple column Full text index, which i just told to how to create above.

BOOLEAN MODE Operators in MySQL Full Text Search :

If We Use BOOLEAN FULL TEXT SEARCHE which means we’ll add boolean mode and we will have some useful operators available to us if we use Boolean mode.

As we just seen the Query “Sujal Shah boy” There is no Operator in between .We could use operators for further refinement or as per needs, only if we use IN BOOLEAN MODE modifier. In Query “Sujal Shah boy” having no operator means Simply “OR” in boolean mode full text search.The Full text Search will Use OR in boolean mode .which means Will find all the rows having any one of those words.

Example

SELECT *, MATCH(title, description) AGAINST ('+Sujal -Shah +boy' IN BOOLEAN MODE) AS artist
FROM artist_listing
ORDER BY artist DESC

+ means AND
- means NOT
[no operator] means OR
Here i have few examples using Mysql Full text search with operators:

+Sujal +Shah +boy:Will find only rows having all three words
+Sujal -Shah : will find rows that contain Sujal but not Shah
+Sujal Shah :will find rows that must contain Sujal, but rank rows higher if they also contain “Shah”.
+Sujal ~Shah :Fetch rows that must have the word “Sujal”, but if the row also have the word “Shah”, rate it lower than if row does not.
‘+Sujal +(>Shah <boy)’ :Get the rows that contain the words “Sujal” and “Shah”, or “boy” and “boy” (in any order), but rank “Sujal Shah” high than “Sujal boy”.

MySQL FULL TEXT SEARCH LIMITS :

Full text search can Only be used with MyIsam TABLES.
For Full text Search to to work, there must be Full text indexes defined otherwise SQL will throw error and Full text search will not work.

Php Date difference - Php Datetime object

2012-09-14T04:01:00.000-07:00

Example : add and diff method of Datetime object

Here in below example DateInterval object has the argument like P01Y01M10D
Here the 01Y indicates 1 year
Here the 01M indicates 1 month
Here the 10D indicates 10 days

<?php

    $givendate='2001-01-01';
    //add one year one month and ten days to given date
    $date = new DateTime($givendate);
    $date->add(new DateInterval('P01Y01M10D'));
    echo $date->format('Y-m-d') . "\n";

    //remove one year one month and ten days to given date
    $date = new DateTime($givendate);
    $date->diff(new DateInterval('P01Y01M10D'));
    echo $date->format('Y-m-d') . "\n";

?>

Output:
2002-02-11
2001-01-01

Example : Calculate Age of a Person using Datetime object

<?php

    //Php Date difference - Php Datetime object 
    $birthday="1984-10-18";
    //creating object for birthday
    $birthday = new DateTime($birthday);
    //createing object for current date
    $currentdate = new DateTime();
    //calculate age using php Datetime object method
    $age=$currentdate->diff($birthday);
    print_r($age);

?>

Output:
DateInterval Object ( [y] => 27
[m] => 10
[d] => 27
[h] => 12
[i] => 38
[s] => 43
[invert] => 1
[days] => 10193
)

Php Pdo Exception Handling - Error mode in Php Pdo

2012-09-12T22:12:00.000-07:00

PDO has 3 types error handling strategies,in php application development.

PDO::ERRMODE_SILENT

PDO::errorCode()

PDO::errorInfo()

PDOStatement::errorCode()

PDOStatement::errorInfo(

PDO::ERRMODE_WARNING

ERRMODE_WARNING

PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION

Exception mode is also usefult o structure error handling clearly than with normal PHP warnings and errors.

PDO Hanling Exception Example

<?php
    $host = 'mysql:dbname=testdb;host=localhost';
    $username = 'root';
    $password = '';
    //try catch block for handling pdo exception
    try {
        $pdoObj = new PDO($host, $username, $password);
        $pdoObj->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
    } catch (PDOException $ex) {
        echo 'Connection failed: ' . $ex->getMessage();
    }
  
    //The example shown above is handling the exception
    //if  the connection using pdo is failed then it will
    //echo connection faild adn the errormessage which is  generated by PDOException class
?>

Php installing MAMP on Mac Os

2012-09-11T04:19:00.001-07:00

The Steps to install MAMP are as below.

Download software : http://mamp.info/en/Click Download Now button. (MAMP is free, but the download also includes the commercial product, MAMP Pro, which makes administering MAMP easier.
MAMP Pro is not needed for this tutorial, and you don’t have to install it either.)
Unzip the file and then, License Agreement will appear; click Agree.

Snap 1: Installing MAMP is just a process of downloading a 
 file, unzip it, and dragging the MAMP folder into your Applications folder.

Now, you need to start the Web server.

TIP: Since you’ll frequently access the MAMP program to turn the Web
 server on and off, it’s a good idea to add it to the OS X Dock.

In Applications->MAMP, start the MAMP program, and then click the Start Servers button if a red light appears to the left of either Apache or MySQL (see Snap2).

Snap 2: When the servers are running, a green button to the left of 
Apache Server and MySQL Server lights up. To stop the servers, click the Stop
 Servers button. A red light next to either server indicates that the 
server is turned off.

Snap 3: After installing MAMP , set Apache and MySQL to
 their normal port settings of 80 and 3306. You can’t do this setting, 
however, if you don’t have administrator privileges for your computer. In that 
case, you have to stick to the 8888 and 8889 port settings that MAMP ships 
with. When you visit a Web page running on your local server, you have to add 
the port, like this: http://localhost:8888/my_cool_page.php.

 Snap 4: The MAMP home page gives you access to a few useful tools, 
like phpMyAdmin, which you’ll use for working with MySQL databases. You 
can always go to the MAMP homepage by typing its URL: 
http://localhost/MAMP; or, in the MAMP controller program, clicking the Open 
Start Page button (Snap 2).

Php PDO Transactions - BeginTransaction,RollBack,Commit

2012-09-07T06:37:00.000-07:00

In transaction management query is not actually applied to database untill we does not commit the transaction.
And if any error occurs then we can rollback the transaction to the previous state.

Understanding Basic Transaction Flow

<?php
// Begin transaction
If(success)
{
   If(success)
   {      // Commit the transaction   }
   else
   {      // Roll back the transaction   }
}
else
{
   // Rollback the transaction
}
?>

Using Php PDO we can manage transaction easily.
Here is some Explanation of How Php PDO transactions works.

PDO::beginTransaction– commit the transaction

PDO::beginTransaction() used to begin the transaction. This function will return true on success and false on error. By calling this function autocommit mode will gets turned off.

<?php
// Begin a transaction 
$obj->beginTransaction();
?>

PDO::commit – commit the transaction

PDO::commit() is used to commit any changed made to DB via PDO object. This will return true on success and false on error.The return type is boolean. Basically this will commit a transaction and autocommit the database connection until the next beginTransaction call.

<?php
    // Begin a transaction
    $obj->beginTransaction();
    // Change the database schema
    $obj->exec("DROP TABLE books");
    // Commit the changes 
    $obj->commit();
    // Database connection is now back in autocommit mode 
?>

PDO::rollBack – Roll back a Transaction

PDO::rollback() will rollback all changes made to database after calling beginTransaction statement and return the connection to autocommit mode.
The return type is boolean.This also return true on success and false on error.

<?php
// Begin a transaction, turning off autocommit 
$obj->beginTransaction();
// Change the database schema and some data 
$obj->exec("UPDATE books SET name = 'PhpBooks'");
// Recognize mistake and roll back changes 
$obj->rollBack();
// Database connection is now back in autocommit mode 
?>

Php PDO: Prepare Statement with Insert and Update

2012-09-07T05:33:00.000-07:00

Insert data in books table using Php PDO.
The example below will insert title "Php Pamplates" and author "Kishor" in books table.

Example: Insert query with PDO prepare statement

<?php
       // configuration variables
        $dbhost     = "localhost";
        $dbname     = "mydatabase";
        $dbuser     = "root";
        $dbpass     = "";        
        // database connection
        $connection = new PDO("mysql:host=$dbhost;dbname=$dbname",$dbuser,$dbpass);
         
        // new data
        $title = 'Php Pamplates';
        $author = 'Kishor';
        $sql = "INSERT INTO books (title,author) VALUES (:title,:author)";
        $query = $connection->prepare($sql);
        $query->execute(array(':author'=>$author,':title'=>$title));
?>

Now, Update data in books table using Php PDO.
The example below will update title to "Php Books" and author to "Hiren" in books table where id
is 1.

Example: Update query with PDO prepare statement

<?php
        // configuration variables
        $dbhost     = "localhost";
        $dbname     = "mydatabase";
        $dbuser     = "root";
        $dbpass     = "";        
        // database connection
        $connection = new PDO("mysql:host=$dbhost;dbname=$dbname",$dbuser,$dbpass);
        // data to be updated in id 1
        $title = 'Php Books';
        $author = 'Hiren';
        $id = 1;
        // query
        $sql = "UPDATE books SET title=?, author=? WHERE id=?";
        $query = $connection->prepare($sql);
        $query->execute(array($title,$author,$id));
         
?>

Php PDO: Prepared Statement

2012-09-07T05:05:00.000-07:00

Prepare statement is the method of Php PDO.
The prepare() statement is used to build the query while we are using Php PDO.

Once the prepare statement is declared with query then The values in that query is passed as array format using execute method of PDO. The example below shows the use of prepare statement in Php PDO.

Example :

<?php
    // database connection
    $connection = new PDO("mysql:host=$dbhost;dbname=$dbname",$dbuser,$dbpass);

    $title = 'echonomic%';
    $author = 'Hiren%';
    // query
    $sql = "SELECT * FROM books WHERE title like ? AND author like ? ";
    $query = $connection->prepare($sql);


    //Now passsing the variables to query and execute it
    $query->execute(array($title,$author));    
    query->setFetchMode(PDO::FETCH_BOTH);

    // fetch
    while ($result = query->fetch()) {
       print_r($result);
     }
?>

In the above example, query depends on a variabel (?).
This script will output the books which has title starts with echonomics and author starts with Hiren.

Click to view More Examples using PDO prepare() statement.

Note : Php Extension for mysql and SQLite does not support this kind of functionality.

Php PDO Fetch methods - FETCH_ASSOC,FETCH_NUM,FETCH_BOTH,FETCH_OBJ

2012-09-07T03:16:00.000-07:00

Php PDO has fetch methods which are explain as below We generally use mysql database methods for php to retrieve data from database.Like mysql_fetch_assoc ,mysql_fetch_row ,mysql_fetch_array ,mysql_fetch_obj.

In Php PDO we have to use different methods to fetch data from database.

Lets consider the connection and we are fetching books from books table

<?php
    // database connection
    $conn = new PDO("mysql:host=$dbhost;dbname=$dbname",$dbuser,$dbpass);
    $sql = "SELECT title FROM books ORDER BY title";
    $query = $conn->query($sql);

 ?>

PDO fetch method FETCH_ASSOC

Example :

<?php
    // Fetch using associative array.This method is similar to mysql_fetch_assoc
    $query->setFetchMode(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
    while($result = $query->fetch()){
    print_r($result);
}
?>

Result:

Array ( [title] => Book 1)
Array ( [title] => Book 2)

PDO fetch method FETCH_NUM

Example :

 <?php
    // Fetch as numeric array.
    $query->setFetchMode(PDO::FETCH_NUM);
    while($result = $query->fetch()){
    print_r($result);
}
?>

Result:

Array ( [0] => Book 1 )
Array ( [0] => Book 2 )

PDO fetch method FETCH_BOTH

Example :

<?php
    // Fetch as associative array and numeric array both.This method 
       is similar to mysql_fetch_array 
    $query->setFetchMode(PDO::FETCH_BOTH);
    while($result = $query->fetch()){
    print_r($result);
}
?>

Result:

Array ( [title] => Book 1 [0] => Book 1 )
Array ( [title] => Book 2 [0] => Book 2 )

PDO fetch method FETCH_OBJ

Example :

<?php
    // Fetch as object.This method is similar to mysql_fetch_obj 
    $query->setFetchMode(PDO::FETCH_OBJ);
    while($result = $query->fetch()){
    print_r($result);
}
?>

Result :

stdClass Object
(
[title] =>Book 1
)
stdClass Object
(
[title] =>Book 2
)

Connect to Database using Php PDO

2012-09-05T23:40:00.000-07:00

Database Connection using Php PDO

Connect to Database with PDO Line of code for connect to database.
When we want to change database, we just rewrite one line code.
Not all code. Below is Php script to connect to several database:

   <?php
                // for MySQL
                $conn = new PDO("mysql:host=$host;dbname=$db", $user, $pass);    
                // for SQLite
                $conn = new PDO("sqlite:$db");   
                // for postgreSQL
                $conn = new PDO("pgsql:host=$host dbname=$db", $user, $pass);
        ?>

Looking the script below:

      <?php
                // configuration variables
                $dbtype     = "sqlite";
                $dbhost     = "localhost";
                $dbname     = "test";
                $dbuser     = "root";
                $dbpass     = "admin";
                $dbpath     = "c:/test.db";      
                // switching for database selection
                switch($dbtype){
                  case "mysql":
                    $dbconn = "mysql:host=$dbhost;dbname=$dbname";
                    break;

                  case "sqlite":
                    $dbconn = "sqlite:$dbpath";
                    break;

                  case "postgresql":
                    $dbconn = "pgsql:host=$dbhost dbname=$dbname";
                    break;
                }        
                // database connection using PDO
                $connection = new PDO($dbconn,$username,$password);
     
        ?>

This is sample script to create database connection using PDO.
It is more portable, because when we change database, we just change at configuration part .

What is Php PDO ?

2012-09-05T05:58:00.001-07:00

PHP Data Object is a Database Connection Abstraction Library for PHP 5.

PDO is extension written in a compiled language (C/C++).
It is a Lightweight Database abstract library.

Why to use PDO?

PDO Supports number of database systems supported by PHP
You need not to code for many database in php. Just write one and run anywhere
PDO is written in compiled language so its speed is more than PHP libraries (ADOdb, PEAR DB) which are written in an interpreted language.
It is very easy to install.

When to use PDO?

when we develope Application from scratch, and also for getting speed we should use PDO.

How to Activate Php PDO ?

If php PDO extension is not enable in your php configuration then

Go to php.ini and remove comment from directives as below.

extension = php_pdo.dll
extension = php_pdo_mysql.dll

Now Restart the Apache. And Done.

Sending email with multiple attachments using PHP Script

2012-09-05T02:20:00.002-07:00

Using mail() function we can send simple mail see simple mail() script.
We can also send multiple attachement using php code and using php mail() function
For this we have to use MIME extenstion

The example below shows how to send multiple attachements with mail.
We have to create one array of files which we want to send in attachement by brosing from interface.

Example:

<?php
 
    // array with filenames to be sent as attachment
    $files = array("file1.jpg","file2.pdf","file3.txt");

    // email fields: to, from, subject, and so on
    $to = "yourmail@mail.com";
    $from = "mymail@mail.com"; 
    $subject ="My subject"; 
    $message = "My message";
    $headers = "From: $from";

    // boundary 
    $semi_rand = md5(time()); 
    $mime_boundary = "==Multipart_Boundary_x{$semi_rand}x"; 

    // headers for attachment 
    $headers .= "\nMIME-Version: 1.0\n" . "Content-Type: multipart/mixed;\n" .   "
                 boundary=\"{$mime_boundary}\""; 

    // multipart boundary 
    $message = "This is a multi-part message in MIME format.\n\n" . "--{$mime_boundary}\n"
               . "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\n" . 
                 "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\n\n" . $message . "\n\n"; 
    $message .= "--{$mime_boundary}\n";

    // preparing attachments
    for($x=0;$x<count($files);$x++){
            $file = fopen($files[$x],"rb");
            $data = fread($file,filesize($files[$x]));
            fclose($file);
            $data = chunk_split(base64_encode($data));
            $message .= "Content-Type: {\"application/octet-stream\"};\n" .  

                        " name=\"$files[$x]\"\n" . 
            "Content-Disposition: attachment;\n" . " filename=\"$files[$x]\"\n" . 
            "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64\n\n" . $data . "\n\n";
            $message .= "--{$mime_boundary}\n";
    }

    // send

    $success = @mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers); 
    if ($success) { 
            echo "<p>mail sent to $to!</p>"; 
    } else { 
            echo "<p>mail could not be sent!</p>"; 
    } 
 
?>

Php Simple E-mail Script

2012-09-04T05:01:00.001-07:00

The PHP mail() function is used to send emails from a script.

Syntax:

mail(to, subject, message ,headers, parameters)

Params	Required	Explaination of parameters
to	Yes	Reciever's email address
subject	Yes	Specifies the subject of the email.
message	Yes	Message to be sent. Each line should be separated with a (\n). Lines should not longer than 70 characters
headers	No	Additional headers, like From, Cc, and Bcc. The additional headers should be separated with (\r\n)
parameters	No	Specifies an additional parameter to the sendmail program

Note: PHP requires an installed email system ro work email system. It is defined in the configuration settings in the php.ini file. Click to View The configuration of mail()

Example :

The simplest example to send an email with PHP.
First declare the variables $to, $subject, $message, $from, $headers then we use the variables in the mail() function to send an e-mail:

<?php

$to = "someone@example.com";

$subject = "Test mail";

$message = "Hello! This is a simple email message.";

$from = "someonelse@example.com";

$headers = "From:" . $from;

mail($to,$subject,$message,$headers);

echo "Mail Sent.";

?>

Click to view Script for Sending email with multiple attachement

E-mail confuguration in Php

2012-09-04T05:00:00.001-07:00

Mail Configuration in Php

The mail() function allows you to send mails from a script directly

PHP requires an installed and working email system for the mail function to work well. It works by the configuration settings in the php.ini file.

The mail() functions is part of the PHP core. There is no installation needed to use these functions.

Configuration

we can set mail() function configurations in php.ini file with the directives as below.

Name	Default	Description
SMTP	"localhost"	(Windows) The DNS name or IP address of the SMTP server
smtp_port	"25"	(Windows) The SMTP port number.
sendmail_from	NULL	(Windows)Specifies the "from" address to be used in email sent from PHP
sendmail_path	NULL	(Linux): Specifies where the sendmail program can be found ( /usr/sbin/sendmail or /usr/lib/sendmail)

Php mail() Example

Most Frequently used php configuration directives : php.ini

2012-09-03T23:26:00.000-07:00

Below are the most frequntly used php directives.
You have to change php.ini file for making confuguration level setting.
This just means changing these directive’s option and value.

Php.ini file is configuration file for php, You can find the location of php.ini file from
Go to http://locahost/xamp and the click phpinfo()

1) short_open_tag = Off

This will not allow the shout tags like , if this is set off

2) max_execution_time = 30

Maximum execution time of th script, in seconds

3) error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_STRICT

This shows all errors, except coding standards warnings. Some more examples for

error_reporting setting:

- Show all errors, except for notices and coding standards warnings

error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE

- Show all errors, except for notices

error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE | E_STRICT

- Show only errors

error_reporting= E_COMPILE_ERROR|E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR|E_ERROR|E_CORE_ERROR

4) display_errors = On

Print errors (as a part of the output). For production web sites turn this feature off, and use error logging instead (see below). Keeping display_errors enabled on a production web site may reveal security information to end users, such as file paths on your Web server, your database schema or other information.

5) log_errors = On

Create Log of errors into a log file (server-specific log, or error_log). You should use error logging in place of error displaying on production web sites.

6) register_globals = Off

You should do your best to write your scripts so that they do not require register_globals to be on.

Using form variables as globals can easily lead to possible security problems, if the code is not very well. Making register_global on can make securitry hole.

7) memory_limit = 128M

This sets the maximum amount of memory in bytes that a script is allowed to allocate. This helps prevent poorly written scripts for eating up all available memory on a server.

8) post_max_size = 8M

Maximum size of POST data that PHP will accept. In the above example Post max size is 8MB.

This setting also affects file upload. To upload large files, this value must be larger than upload_max_filesize. If memory limit is set by your configure script, memory_limit also affects file uploading. Generally , memory_limit should be more than post_max_size .

9) file_uploads = On

Allow HTTP file uploads or not.

10) upload_max_filesize = 2M

Maximum allowed size for uploaded files. Default is 2MB.

11) allow_url_fopen = On

Allow the treatment of URLs (like http:// or ftp://) as files if on.

Output Buffer in Php

2012-09-03T06:16:00.001-07:00

What is the output buffer?

If you output some html or javascript code or use echo or print within php, this information is being sent to the browser. If you use the output buffer this information is first stored on the server until either the script has finished executing or you performed some kind of action on the buffer.

We will now look at how to use the output buffer and what we can do with it.

Starting Output Buffer

You have to start the output buffer before anything is sent to the browser. So one of the ways to ensure that is starting it right after you opened the php tag. Example:

<?php
ob_start();

Make sure that there is really nothing before the php opening tag. Even a space can cause errors.

Send Output Buffer to Browser

If at any time you wish to send the content of the buffer to the browser you can do this with the following line.

ob_flush();

After this point however the output buffer will continue to buffer the content which is send to the browser. If you which to simply send the content of the buffer and stop using it you can do this with the following code.

ob_end_flush();

Delete Output Buffer

In some instances you might wish to delete whatever is stored in the output buffer and build up a new page. You can do this by using the following command.

ob_clean();

Just like the ob_flush(); command, the output buffer would continue buffering the content which is sent to the browser. The command to delete the buffer and stop it is
ob_end_clean();

Get Output Buffer Content

If you started the output buffer you can get the content of it at any time (unless you have deleted it or sent it to the browser of course). This is done by the following line

$var = ob_get_contents();

This means that everything you echo or would be sent otherwise to the browser between this line and the ob_start(); will now be in $var. Now you may wonder what you can do with this. Well there are multiple things. You could create a templating system for example. You could create a file in which you have all the look and feel but without content. Where you would usually place content like in the title or a menu you would place tokens.

Example:

<html>
<head><title>[%TITLE%]</title>

</head>
<body>

MENU

CONTENT

</body>
</html>

So in the above example we have 3 placeholders. one for the title, menu and for content. And this is the way we can use the template with the output buffer.

<?php

ob_start();

include('template.php');
$title = 'Hello World';

$menu = '<a href="index.php">Home</a> | <a href="about.php">About us</a>';

$content = '<h1>Hello World</h1> This is a simple test to show how the templating system works';

$var = ob_get_contents();
ob_clean();

echo $var;

?>

As you can see once you have the content you can do whatever you wish with it. Here are some ideas what you could do:

Delete all the line breaks and spaces between the tags to reduce the filesize
Make sure that all links have the full path ie with http://www.domain.com and not only index.php
Add a nofollow to all links to add external sites (SEO technique)

Php Arrays

2012-09-03T00:30:00.000-07:00

An array is a special variable, which can store multiple values in one single variable.
There are three kind of arrays in php:

Numeric array - An array with a numeric index
Associative array - An array where each ID key is associated with a value
Multidimensional array -Array elements can contain one or more array.

Numeric Array

Numeric Array can be created by two ways.

1. Auto index.In this index will assigned automatically.

$bikes = array("Hero","Bajaj","Yamaha");

2. We can assign index manually also :

$bikes[0]="Hero";
$bikes[1]="Bajaj";
$bikes[2]="Yamaha";

Associative Arrays

In associative array there is a key value pair

With associative arrays we can use the values as keys and assign values to them.

Example :

In this example we use an array to assign ages to the different persons:

$personages = array("Sujal"=>32, "Mitesh"=>30, "Hiren"=&gt;34);

$personages['Sujal'] = "32";
$personages['Mitesh'] = "30";
$personages['Hiren'] = "34";

Multidimensional Arrays

Multidimentional array means each element of array can also be a array.

Example :

$Arrayresult = Array
(
[Admin] => Array
  (
  [0] => Sujal
  [1] => Mitesh
  [2] => Hiren
  )
[Receptionist] => Array
  (
  [0] => Glenn
  )
[Staff] => Array
  (
  [0] => Rahul
  [1] => Sandhya
  [2] => Suraj
  )
)

We can access staff details by $Arrayresult['staff'][0] or $Arrayresult['staff'][1] or $Arrayresult['staff'][2]

Php $_POST & $_REQUEST variable

2012-09-01T06:17:00.002-07:00

The $_POST Variable

The $_POST variable is used to collect values from a form which are sent using post method.
Information sent with the POST method is not visible to addressbar and it has no limitations

Note: There is default 8 Mb max size for the POST method it can be changed by setting the post_max_size in the php.ini file).

Example :

<form action="target.php" method="post">

Name: <input type="text" name="username" />

Age: <input type="text" name="country" />

<input type="submit" />
</form>

When the user clicks the "Submit" button, the addressbar will be like this:

http://www.test.com/target.php

The "target.php" file can now use the $_POST variable to collect form data (the names of the form fields will automatically be the keys in the $_POST array):

Welcome <?php echo $_POST["username"]; ?>!<br />

You are from  <?php echo $_POST["country"]; ?> country.

The PHP $_REQUEST Variable

The $_REQUEST variable contain all values of $_GET, $_POST, and $_COOKIE.
The $_REQUEST variable can be used to collect form data sent with both the GET and POST methods.

Example :

Welcome <?php echo $_REQUEST["username"]; ?>!<br />

You are from <?php echo $_REQUEST["country"]; ?> country.

Php $_GET variable

2012-09-01T05:57:00.000-07:00

The $_GET variable is used To collect values in a form with form method "get"
Information sent from the GET method is visible in url and displayed in the browser's address bar.

The get method is not suitable for very large variable values. It should not be used with values exceeding 2000 characters.

Example

<form action="target.php" method="get">

UserName: <input type="text" name="username" />

Country: <input type="text" name="country" />

<input type="submit" />

</form>


When the user press the "Submit" button, the URL sent to the 
server look like below:

http://www.test.com/target.php?username=Hiren&country=india

The "target.php" file can now use the $_GET variable to collect form data (the names of the form fields will automatically be the keys in the $_GET array):

Welcome <?php echo $_GET["username"]; ?>.

You are from <?php echo $_GET["country"]; ?> country!

When should use "get" method?

When using method="get" in HTML forms, all variable names and values are displayed in the addressbar.

Note: get method should not be used when sending sensitive information like password!