PHP5 Magazine

Ext4Yii Framework 0.7 Released

2010-12-10T16:47:43Z

The Ext4Yii Framework is a professional PHP Yii extension which provides server-side ExtJS functionality. It is a template parsing system, capable of rendering embedded XML templates into ExtJS JavaScript components. Among many additions and improvements, the Ext4Yii Framework version 0.7 provides the functionality to use customized ExtJS components and the ability to assign implied JavaScript values in Ext4Yii templates.

Verison 0.7 is the second release of the framework, which has been internally re-written for better performance, error handling and template parsing. Below a short list of new features :

* Implied JavaScript Notation : which can be used to instruct the template parser to render inline JavaScript values.
* Context Menus : easily create context menus for virtually every component in the Ext4Yii Framework.
* Customized and 3rd party controls
* Other additions : several plugins for the TabPanel control, GridRowExpanderColumn model for the GridPanel, and mong many other additions...

As for this release, Ext4yii will not be available under GPL anymore, however only commercial and evaluation license are available. More information at http://www.ext4yii.com/site/index.html

Jade Advanced Templating Engine available for PHP

2010-11-05T16:18:24Z

Jade is originally a template engine for NodeJS, now available for PHP also. Jade.php is a high performance template compiler heavily influenced by Haml and implemented for PHP 5.3.

Key features include :

high performance parser
great readability
contextual error reporting at compile & run time
html 5 mode (using the !!! 5 doctype)
combine dynamic and static tag classes
no tag prefix
clear & beautiful HTML output
filters :php :cdata :css and :javascript, and you can add your own filters too.

Jade.php got already extension for TextMate, VIM and Symfony2. I guess Symfony users will be very familiar with the YAML-inspired templates engine more than anybody else.

More info at http://everzet.com/jade.php/ sources on github, released under an Open Source license.

Vitche Emission, Lightweight PHP Framework

2010-09-21T08:37:33Z

Vitche Emission PHP Framework is a non-commercial Open Source lightweight PHP Framework. The key idea of that framework is to use central repository for keeping source code and providing all client software with an ability to do real-time source code updates. That makes the client free from the need to keeps the framework's source code.

The following features are supported in the Emission Framework:

- ORM for database access;
- SOAP client;
- REST web service;
- SOAP-to-REST gateway web service;
- ICQ client;
- WordPress content client;
- SiteMap content client;
- Caching;
- GrossCommerce SOAP client;
- Some UI components.

The source code is available under the LGPL license at: http://emission-framework.com

ORM Designer Reviewed

2010-09-13T12:23:13Z

Many developers building web applications accessing databases can�t imagine their work without using ORM framework, but as much as the ORM frameworks ease the development and make the code easier to read they can also take lots of time setting up. Some of the best ORM frameworks in PHP are Doctrine, Propel and CakePHP. All these frameworks are based around database and ORM definitions written by the developer. This gives the developer more freedom to optimize how the ORM framework works with the database but it also means yet another code to maintain. ORM Designer is a new software which helps developers with the tasks related to creating and maintaining ORM definitions.

What is ORM Designer ?

If you see ORM Designer for the first time, you might think it�s another ERD modelling tool. Once you have a second look you�ll realize there is much more to the ORM Designer and ERD modelling is just on of many tools which haven�t been seen in any other software before and which makes ORM Designer unique. Let�s have a look what does ORM Designer offer beside visual modelling. One of the core features is sophisticated import/export features from and into ORM frameworks, MySQL Workbench or fabForce DBDesigner. This is very helpful when using ORM Designer on existing project. Currently supported ORM frameworks are Doctrine, Doctrine 2, Propel and CakePHP but more should come in near future. Authors promise to support any ORM framework which could provide cooperation when implementing ORM definitions.

PHP 5.2.14 and 5.3.3 Released

2010-07-23T11:37:45Z

Today the latest version in the 5.2 released 5.2.14 focus on improving the stability with over 60 bugs fixes, including security fixes. This release marks the end of the active support for PHP 5.2. Following this release the PHP 5.2 series will receive no further active bug maintenance. Security fixes for PHP 5.2 might be published on a case by cases basis. All users of PHP 5.2 are encouraged to upgrade to PHP 5.3.

On the 5.3 branch, the 5.3.3 released with over 100 bug fixes, some of which are security related. All users are encouraged to upgrade to this release. There is a backwards incompatible change between 5.3.2 and 5.3.3 in namespaces : Methods with the same name as the last element of a namespaced class name will no longer be treated as constructor. This change doesn't affect non-namespaced classes.

It Is Not Whether You Should Unit Test But How Much

2010-02-23T21:51:53Z

It is often tempting to skip unit testing for ad-hoc testing. However when done in the appropriate amount unit testing will increase productivity and reliability. It is also a great diagnostic tool. Unit testing is a skill that can get you to the next level as a programmer as well as an organization. It takes discipline and when done in the right amount you should be able to reap the benefits in weeks.

In this article, I will show simple examples on how to move your ad-hoc tests to test classes. The examples use the RawDev framework which makes unit testing as easy as it can possibly be. I will cover what a unit test is, how to create tests and a tool to execute the tests. I will also talk about some of the pitfalls and how to get around them.

What is a unit test?

Since virtually all code resides in functions, RawDev uses the following definition:

RawDev defines a unit test as a single test of the output of a function call, given specific input. Part of a test is also the verification of object and global state changes.

The above diagram shows all the relationships to a function that is unit tested. The terms in the diagram are described below:

Fat-Free PHP Framework

2010-02-23T17:00:55Z

Fat-Free is a modular and lightweight PHP 5.3+ Web application framework designed to help build dynamic and robust Web sites. It shows some resemblance to Ruby's Sinatra and PHP's Limonade, but the similarities end with Fat-Free's HTML/XML/RSS/e-mail template rendering engine, CAPTCHA image generator, an SQL database helper, etc. which allow development teams to distribute work loads and compartmentalize programming/design efforts in typical MVC fashion.

The sofware has two separate yet tightly-linked modules:

The Core Pack, which provides the base framework functionality and access to Fat-Free's fast template engine, powerful cache, HTML forms processor, and easy-to-use SQL handler for databases - in one tiny zero-install file!
The optional Expansion Pack, which works seamlessly with the Core Pack, includes a CAPTCHA image generator, Javascript/CSS compressor, and a thumbnail image generator.

More information and download at fatfree.sourceforge.net. Released under GPL v3 license.

Symfony 2, a New Generation of PHP Frameworks

2010-02-18T09:01:14Z

If I have to describe Fabien Potencier, I'll describe him as a Web Composer or a PHP Artist for writing a very beautiful composition played by a large orchestra of PHP developers around the world. Symfony 2 have just been revealed to public with a new innovative architecture, "Symfony 2 is fast, flexible, and easy to learn. It allows developers to built better and easy to maintain websites with PHP". New in Symfony 2 :

High Performance : Symfony 2 is up to 3 times faster than symfony 1.4 or Zend Framework 1.10 and consumes half the memory
Extensible : Symfony 2 is built from the ground up around "bundles" (plugins in Symfony speak). Bundles are first-class citizens, and the core framework itself is made of bundles.
Flexible : Thanks to an innovative micro-kernel based on a Dependency Injection Container and an Event Dispatcher, Symfony is configurable at will.
Built for Developers : Symfony 2 provides tools that greatly enhance the productivity of developers, like the famous web debug toolbar, native support for environments, detailed error pages, and more.
Full-Featured : Symfony 2 comes out of the box with all the features you need to develop modern web applications. It also provides built-in security and promotes web development best practices.
Open-Source : Released under the MIT license

The presentation below give a good insight of new features and changes in Symfony 2 :

The preview release of Symfony 2 is not yet ready for production. The final release is planned for late 2010 and will only supports PHP 5.3. In the meantime, the current stable release for all your projects is symfony 1.4. More information and download at http://symfony-reloaded.org/

DooPHP 1.1 Released, More Mature Features Inside

2009-08-24T22:38:19Z

DooPHP 1.1 have just been released with a more complete and mature list of features, in addition to performance improvements, again ! The benchmark comparison of v1.0 and v1.1 show a slightly high number of Requests Per Second (RPS) supported by v1.1 compared to 1.0, In addition to a new benchmark showing the new frontend cache mechanism performance with a database connection.

Noticeable New Features in v1.1 :

Access Control List(ACL) as built-in authentication support.
Data caching which supports APC, Memcache, XCache, EAccelerator & file based cache.
Sophisticated Frontend cache mechanism where both full page(single/recurvise) & partial page cache are supported.
Database replication (master-slave) support in the ORM tools
Better conventional modular directory structure support.
Auto loading of the framework classes.
IF statement and Cache tag support for template engine.
Enhanced model class generator. PostgreSQL supported.
Image manipulation helper for resize, crop, watermark, upload, etc.
Pager component for item list pagination.
Text helper class for string manipulation.
Url builder class to generates URLs based on route ID or controller & method names
Log/Profile viewer tool.
Sitemap Generator tool to generate routes and controller files.

Download latest DooPHP. New demos and tools are added in to help you get started with the Framework. There are already some mentions of DooPHP in our PHP Frameworks Trends, so if you are on twitter you can voice your opinion or share your experience with DooPHP.

P4A, PHP for Applications Framework

2009-08-19T08:15:13Z

P4A, PHP for Applications, is an interesting PHP5 RAD and object oriented PHP framework to build event-driven stateful web applications. P4A is based on Zend Framework 1.5 and using jQuery, jQuery UI, and FCKEditor to provides developers with a complete RAD solution that features tableless HTML, multiple databases, accesskey support, auto data type recognition, transparent AJAX, UTF-8, i18n/l10n.

P4A project started since February 2003 and was finalist in the SourceForge 2006 Community Choice Awards. The project is 100% written in PHP5 and is compatible with PHP 5.2.x, Apache 1.3.x/2.0.x and Microsoft IIS 6.0 web servers on Linux/Unix/Windows operating systems. One of the most useful feature is its widget system which is like the visual components found on desktop development tool such as, Delphi, Visual C, Netbeans, etc. Many widgets are available including single line or multiple lines text fields with advanced rich WYSIWYG text editing support, checkboxes, single/multiple selection fields, tables, buttons, tree navigators, toolbars, fieldsets etc...

P4A includes a nice and clean graphical theme that you can easily customize with color schemes, icons packs, additional CSS. If you use, like or suggest P4A Framework be sure to mention it (as p4a) in our PHP Frameworks Trends.

Tekuna, MVC Microframework for PHP

2009-08-15T07:26:37Z

We announced last month Limonade PHP microframework. Today here come Tekuna, an MVC Microframework for PHP. Tekuna is small, just 3000 source lines of code, it improves reusability with a component-oriented definition of the application and intuitive routing. Its small footprint will not pollute your codebase with unnecessary stuff.

Below a more detailed features list for Tekuna :

Component-oriented Definition of the Application
Intuitive Routing of Actions to Controllers
Friendly URLs (RESTful API)
MVC Architecture
PHP Error handling with Exceptions (and thus catchable)
Separate Request and Response Objects
Strict Input Filtering
Full UTF-8 Support
Support for multiple Template Engines
Simple Multilanguage Support
Fully Unit-tested
100% E_STRICT Compliant
Combinable with many other frameworks (Templating, ORM, Unit-testing...)
Geared to java programming and naming style
Open Source under an MIT License

Current Tekuna version os 0.1.189 requires PHP 5.2.1 with mod_rewrite enabled on your Apache webserver. A quick start is available to understand Tekuna principles, architecture and features. The project is at its early stage and not ready for production, but you might check the project's roadmap to have a better idea about what's coming next.

PHP Depend 0.9.6 Released

2009-08-03T06:07:10Z

Manuel Pichler announced today the availability of PHP Depend 0.9.6, the software metrics for PHP. The new release provides many bug fixes and improvements. Manuel started migrating PHP_Depend's internal system from plain Token object to an Abstract Syntax Tree and that's the main feature behind this release.

Charts Generated by PHP_Depend

PHP Depend is software analyzer and metric tool which aims to provide many useful information about a specified PHP project. The software rely on @package and @subpackage annotation in the code to generate a summary xml file, in addition to two SVG charts : a JDepend like chart and a pyramid visualization of the summary xml file. Based on these information you can measure the quality of a software project and identify parts of the code that should be refactored.

You can get the latest PHP_Depend version from its PEAR channel: pear.pdepend.org

$pear channel-discover pear.pdepend.org
$pear install pdepend/PHP_Depend-beta

DooPHP, the Fastest MVC based PHP Framework

2009-07-27T07:28:54Z

Here is a very new project that claims to be the fastest PHP Framework available. DooPHP is a rapid development framework for PHP using commonly known design patterns like MVC and ORM, reduces development costs and helps developers write less code.

The project provides the essential to build robust web 2.0 application with a focus on seven major points : MVC, REST, URI routing, ORM, Template engine, ease of use and performance. To get highest performance DooPHP uses the lazy loading technique extensively and avoid slow PHP functions & methods. It has a small memory footprint as well. With DooPHP, you're good to go with your 10-million-hits-per-month web apps.

With DooPHP, nothing is loaded except what is needed to build the page; no extra function calls, no extra class includes and no extra overhead. Which makes it the fastest framework in existence. But don't take our word for it, benchmark DooPHP on your own to find out the truth.

According to their benchmarks and stress tests, DooPHP seems to perform better than CakePHP, QeePHP, CodeIgniter and Yii for making a simple echo. Tests have been done with and without caching, and of course you will get the highest performance with caching solutions such as APC, E-Accelerator, Zend Optimizer or XCache.

PHP CLI Framework, Create Robust Shell Scripts

2009-07-19T21:14:50Z

Who said that shell scripts doesn't need a framework ? PHP CLI Framework is a lightweight Framework that allows you to create extremely robust shell scripts within minutes. The framework written by Tj Holowaychuk of vision media, provides simple PHP5 interface for shell scripting. Unfortunately there is no documentation or sample code provided with the framework, the only program reportedly implementing the PHP CLI Framework is a tool called DRAN, which is the Drupal Analysis Tool and can be found at http://drupal.org/project/dran.

PHP CLI Framework Features include :

Debugging
Unified help documentation / option creation
STDIN and STDERR using CLI::prompt() and CLI::error()
List theme including bullet, numeric, and alpha list types
Table theme which calculates dimensions

vfsStream 0.4.0 released

2009-07-14T09:13:28Z

Frank Kleine released yesterday version 0.4.0 of vfsStream with new support for file modes, owners and groups; in addition to a bugfix for vfsStreamDirectory::addChild(). vfsStream is a stream wrapper for a virtual file system that may be helpful in unit tests to mock the real file system. It can be used with any unit test framework, like PHPUnit or SimpleTest. Frank pointed also to some issues related to vfsStream :

Major problem is that the PHP functions chmod(), chown() and chgrp() do not work with vfsStream URLs due to limitations imposed by PHP (or possibly by underlying C, not sure). The stream wrapper API has no support to enable setting file modes, owner or group of a userland stream implementation. This means the usage of file mode support is limited and can not be applied to create tests for classes using one of the three functions.

You can find examples for testing file modes here. To install vfsStream add pear.php-tools.net to your pear channels (pear channel-discover pear.php-tools.net) then you can install using pear install pat/vfsStream-alpha. More information available here.