SmartWebTutorials

Magento 2 Enable Template Path Hints

2018-12-15T02:01:00.001-08:00

Enabling template path hints via Admin panel

For storefront: Store > Configuration > Advanced > Developer > Debug > Enabled Template Path Hints for Storefront > Yes.

For Admin: Store > Configuration > Advanced > Developer > Debug > Enabled Template Path Hints for Admin > Yes.

Enabling/Disabling Template Path Hints via env.php file

app/etc/env.php

In this file you can change the value template_hints_storefront and template_hints_admin.

Enabling Template Path Hints via Command Line

php bin/magento dev:template-hints:enable

php bin/magento dev:template-hints:disable

php bin/magento cache:flush

Magento 2 checkout cause cart to empty

2018-12-15T01:28:00.005-08:00

Magento 2 checkout cause cart to empty

I have implemented some changes that seem to resolve the issue but if anyone can look over this and feedback that would be great

vendor/magento/framework/Session/SessionManager.php

The regenerateId function needs replacing with this

public function regenerateId()
    {
        if (headers_sent()) {
            return $this;
        }

        if ($this->isSessionExists()) {
            $oldSessionId = session_id();            
            session_regenerate_id();   //regen the session
            $new_session_id = session_id();

            $_SESSION['new_session_id'] = $new_session_id;

            // Set destroy timestamp
            $_SESSION['destroyed'] = time();

            // Write and close current session;
            session_commit();
            $oldSession = $_SESSION;   //called after destroy - see destroy!
            // Start session with new session ID
            session_id($new_session_id);
            ini_set('session.use_strict_mode', 0);
            session_start();
            ini_set('session.use_strict_mode', 1);
            $_SESSION = $oldSession;
            // New session does not need them
            unset($_SESSION['destroyed']);
            unset($_SESSION['new_session_id']);  
        } else {
            session_start();
        }
        $this->storage->init(isset($_SESSION) ? $_SESSION : []);

        if ($this->sessionConfig->getUseCookies()) {
            $this->clearSubDomainSessionCookie();
        }
        return $this;
    }

and also the start function needs replacing with this

public function start()
    {
        if (!$this->isSessionExists()) {
            \Magento\Framework\Profiler::start('session_start');

            try {
                $this->appState->getAreaCode();
            } catch (\Magento\Framework\Exception\LocalizedException $e) {
                throw new \Magento\Framework\Exception\SessionException(
                    new \Magento\Framework\Phrase(
                        'Area code not set: Area code must be set before starting a session.'
                    ),
                    $e
                );
            }

            // Need to apply the config options so they can be ready by session_start
            $this->initIniOptions();
            $this->registerSaveHandler();
            if (isset($_SESSION['new_session_id'])) {
             // Not fully expired yet. Could be lost cookie by unstable network.
             session_commit();
             session_id($_SESSION['new_session_id']);
             }
            // potential custom logic for session id (ex. switching between hosts)
            $this->setSessionId($this->sidResolver->getSid($this));
            session_start();
            if (isset($_SESSION['destroyed'])) {
               if ($_SESSION['destroyed'] < time()-300) {
                   $this->destroy(['clear_storage' => true]);

               }
            }
            $this->validator->validate($this);

            register_shutdown_function([$this, 'writeClose']);

            $this->_addHost();
            \Magento\Framework\Profiler::stop('session_start');
        }
        $this->storage->init(isset($_SESSION) ? $_SESSION : []);
        return $this;
    }

Magento 2 Certified Professional Developer Practice Test

2018-12-14T10:07:00.005-08:00

1. As you create a controller in Magento's adminhtml, you must configure it to respond appropriately to the ACL. Keeping simplicity in mind, what steps do you take to implement this?

A. Create a plugin to ensure that the ACL resource is accessible.
B. Check the authorization class' isAllowed method as the first check in the execute function.
C. Set the value of the ADMIN_RESOURCE constant to be the ACL resource.
D. Override _isAllowed and check the authorization class' isAllowed method for the ACL resource.

Correct Answer : C2. There is a product with a price of $25. The special price is $20 and is active through 2017. The tiered pricing has a discount for 2 or more products at $22.00. Additionally, a catalog price url applies a 10% off discount. What is the final price that is shown on the product page?
A. 22.50
B. 22.
C. 20.
D. 18.Correct Answer : A

Setup Xdebug in your system

2018-12-14T09:59:00.000-08:00

1.Find your PHP ini file. 2.Run command “php --ini” to find loaded ini file.
3.Uncomment xdebug module.

zend_extension="/Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php7.0.8/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20151012/xdebug.so"

4.Set below settings for xdebug

xdebug.remote_enable=1
xdebug.remote_host=127.0.0.1
xdebug.remote_connect_back=1 # Not safe for production servers
xdebug.remote_port=9000
xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp
xdebug.remote_mode=req
xdebug.remote_autostart=true

5.Set-up debugger with PHPStorm

Open drop down and click on edit configuration as display in below screenshot.

Click on + icon and select PHP Web Page from the list.

Under Configuration section set Server details and for that click on

Step-out, Step-into, Continue, Terminate

Step-out: F8

Step-Into: F7

Continue: F9

Debugging step by step
Inspect variables
Watch variable
Conditional debugging point

Install and Configure Redis Cache On Magento 2

2018-12-13T10:01:00.002-08:00

Compare to magento 1.x , magento 2 has come up with various cache configuration, one of these is redis.
Redis is an open source high performance database, in-memory data structure store. Redis is a key-value store meaning is primarily design to store data using a unique Key.
Redis is an optional backend cache solution to replace magento2's default Zend_Cache_Backend_File.
Limitation of default Zend_Cache_Backend_File is core_cache_tag table constantly grows. If a Magento instance has multiple web sites and web stores with large catalogs.
Advantages of Redis:

Extreme fast in-memory storage
Vertical and Horizontal Scaleable
Shareable among Multi Servers
Cache Tag Support
Persistence

Requirements :

The following are the prerequisites to configure Redis Cache on Magento 2:
Redis Server
PHP Redis Extension
How to configure Magento 2 to use Redis as cache storage?
To configure Redis for Magento 2 cache, just add the following example to your app/etc/env.php:

'cache' =>

 array (

 'frontend' =>

  array (

   'default' =>

    array (

     'backend' => 'Cm_Cache_Backend_Redis',

      'backend_options' =>

      array (

       'server' => 'https://www.linkedin.com/redir/invalid-link-page?url=127%2e0%2e0%2e1',

       'port' => '6379',

       'persistent' => 0,

       'database' => '0',

       'force_standalone' => '0',

       'connect_retries' => '10',

       'read_timeout' => '30',

       'automatic_cleaning_factor' => '0',

       'compress_data' => '1',

       'compress_tags' => '1',

       'compress_threshold' => '20480',

       'compression_lib' => 'gzip',

     ),

   ),

  ),

),

Now flush your cache:
rm -rf /data/web/magento2/var/cache/*
redis-cli flushall
NOTE:
If redis is working you should not see any files and directories in the folder var/cache/ anymore.
Further you can connect with "redis-cli info" to check if there entries in the databases.
Enter the following command:
redis-cli ping
PONG should be the response.
If both commands succeeded, Redis is set up properly.

speed up Magento using .htaccess file

2017-09-21T22:44:00.001-07:00

Speed Magento with .htaccess file

1) Enable Gzip Compression For Magento

Gzip is a method of compressing files (reducing file’s size) for faster network transfers. In your htaccess file, find. #php_flag zlib.output_compression on and un-comment it to enable Gzip Compression

2) Compressing CSS and JavaScript files

Compressing CSS and JavaScript files is important to speed your Magento site, we can enable compression for CSS and Java files by adding the following lines to .htaccess file:

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>

  # Compress HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Text, XML and fonts

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-opentype

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-truetype

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/otf

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml

  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon

</IfModule>

Enable Expires Headers

Expire header is used here to indicate how long browser should store files for caching. Generally, we use expire headers for images file only but for Magento, we should apply expire header for all elements like script, styles or flash.

############################################

## Add Expires header to Magento - by Magentoexplorer.com

## http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#expires

    <FilesMatch "\.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf)$">

    ExpiresActive On

    ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 year"

Disable ETags

Entity tags (ETags) help web servers and browsers use to determine if the component in the browser’s cache matches the one on the origin serverETages allow browsers to validate cached page. We can disable eTags to improve performance:

FileETag none

Disable some unwanted modules

Magento 2 Architecture

2017-09-19T21:50:00.002-07:00

Magento 2 architecture

Magento architecture from different perspectives

Depending upon your role and purpose for learning more about Magento, there are several different ways to view the Magento architecture. For example, a developer who wants to create new modules or perhaps customize an existing module will want to understand the architecture of a module itself, and how it fits into the larger view, with the Magento framework and other components. However, a merchant who wants to quickly build an online store front wants to view the collection of components from a higher level, and understand the components that impact the look, feel, and user interaction components.

Architecture layers diagram

The following diagram illustrates the components of Magento, and shows the “layers” or tiers, for all components, as well as the Magento framework, 3rd party libraries, the supported database, and other technologies.

Magento 2 Reindex process

2017-09-18T02:02:00.001-07:00

Hello Team,

Please run the below command through command prompt:

Check the current status of Indexing
1) php bin/magento indexer:status
Execute All Indexes
2) php bin/magento indexer:reindex
Reset All Indexes
3) php bin/magento indexer:reset
Index only one Index
4) php bin/magento indexer:reindex customer_grid
Reset one Index
5) php bin/magento indexer:reset customer_grid

run the following SQL query directly into the database :

UPDATE indexer_state SET status = 'valid';

Authorize.Net CIM integration with PHP

2012-07-10T03:09:00.000-07:00

here is the class code to go along with the above code.. if you really need it:

class AuthnetCIMException extends Exception {}

class AuthnetCIM
{
    const USE_PRODUCTION_SERVER  = 0;
    const USE_DEVELOPMENT_SERVER = 1;

    const EXCEPTION_CURL = 10;

    private $params  = array();
    private $items   = array();
    private $success = false;
    private $error   = true;

    private $login;
    private $transkey;
    private $xml;
    private $ch;
    private $response;
    private $url;
    private $resultCode;
    private $code;
    private $text;
    private $profileId;
    private $validation;
    private $paymentProfileId;
    private $results;

    public function __construct($login, $transkey, $test = self::USE_PRODUCTION_SERVER)
    {
        $this->login    = trim($login);
        $this->transkey = trim($transkey);
        if (empty($this->login) || empty($this->transkey))
        {
            trigger_error('You have not configured your ' . __CLASS__ . '() login credentials properly.', E_USER_ERROR);
        }

        $this->test = (bool) $test;
        $subdomain  = ($this->test) ? 'apitest' : 'api';
        $this->url = 'https://' . $subdomain . '.authorize.net/xml/v1/request.api';

        $this->params['customerType']     = 'individual';
        $this->params['validationMode']   = 'liveMode';
        $this->params['taxExempt']        = 'false';
        $this->params['recurringBilling'] = 'false';
    }

    public function __destruct()
    {
        if (isset($this->ch))
        {
            curl_close($this->ch);
        }
    }

    public function __toString()
    {
        if (!$this->params)
        {
            return (string) $this;
        }
        $output  = '<table summary="Authnet Results" id="authnet">' . "\n";
        $output .= '<tr>' . "\n\t\t" . '<th colspan="2"><b>Outgoing Parameters</b></th>' . "\n" . '</tr>' . "\n";
        foreach ($this->params as $key => $value)
        {
            $output .= "\t" . '<tr>' . "\n\t\t" . '<td><b>' . $key . '</b></td>';
            $output .= '<td>' . $value . '</td>' . "\n" . '</tr>' . "\n";
        }

        $output .= '</table>' . "\n";
        if (!empty($this->xml))
        {
            $output .= 'XML: ';
            $output .= htmlentities($this->xml);
        }
        return $output;
    }

    private function process()
    {
        $this->ch = curl_init();
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_URL, $this->url);
     curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
     curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, Array("Content-Type: text/xml"));
     curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
     curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $this->xml);
     curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
     curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
        $this->response = curl_exec($this->ch);
        if($this->response)
        {
            $this->parseResults();
            if ($this->resultCode === 'Ok')
            {
                $this->success = true;
                $this->error   = false;
            }
            else
            {
                $this->success = false;
                $this->error   = true;
            }
            curl_close($this->ch);
            unset($this->ch);
        }
        else
        {
            throw new AuthnetCIMException('Connection error: ' . curl_error($this->ch) . ' (' . curl_errno($this->ch) . ')', self::EXCEPTION_CURL);
        }
    }

 $cim = new AuthnetCIM('api-id', 'api-key', 
                                       AuthnetCIM::USE_DEVELOPMENT_SERVER);

// Process the transaction
  $cim->setParameter('amount', $amount);
  $cim->setParameter('customerProfileId', $customerProfileId);
  $cim->setParameter('customerPaymentProfileId', $customerPaymentProfileId);
  //$cim->setParameter('customerShippingAddressId', $shipping_profile_id);
  $cim->setParameter('cardCode', $cvv);
  $cim->setLineItem('1', 'xxxx', 'xxxxxx', '1', '9.95');
  $cim->createCustomerProfileTransaction();
  
  //test if transaction went through 
  if ($cim->isSuccessful())
  {
  //should we store this approval code??----------------------
   $approval_code = $cim->getAuthCode();

public function createCustomerProfileTransaction($type = 'profileTransAuthCapture')
    {
        $types = array('profileTransAuthCapture', 'profileTransCaptureOnly','profileTransAuthOnly');
        if (!in_array($type, $types))
        {
            trigger_error('createCustomerProfileTransaction() parameter must be"profileTransAuthCapture", "profileTransCaptureOnly", "profileTransAuthOnly", or empty', E_USER_ERROR);
        }

        $this->xml = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
                      <createCustomerProfileTransactionRequest xmlns="AnetApi/xml/v1/schema/AnetApiSchema.xsd">
                          <merchantAuthentication>
                              <name>' . $this->login . '</name>
                              <transactionKey>' . $this->transkey . '</transactionKey>
                          </merchantAuthentication>
                          <refId>'. $this->params['refId'] .'</refId>
                          <transaction>
                              <' . $type . '>
                                  <amount>'. $this->params['amount'] .'</amount>';
        if (isset($this->params['taxAmount']))
        {
            $this->xml .= '
                                  <tax>
                                       <amount>'. $this->params['taxAmount'].'</amount>
                                       <name>'. $this->params['taxName'] .'</name>
                                       <description>'.$this->params['taxDescription'].'</description>
                                  </tax>';
        }
        if (isset($this->params['shipAmount']))
        {
            $this->xml .= '
                                  <shipping>
                                       <amount>'. $this->params['shipAmount'].'</amount>
                                       <name>'. $this->params['shipName'] .'</name>
                                       <description>'.$this->params['shipDescription'].'</description>
                                  </shipping>';
        }
        if (isset($this->params['dutyAmount']))
        {
            $this->xml .= '
                                  <duty>
                                       <amount>'. $this->params['dutyAmount'].'</amount>
                                       <name>'. $this->params['dutyName'] .'</name>
                                       <description>'.$this->params['dutyDescription'].'</description>
                                  </duty>';
        }
        $this->xml .= '
                                  <lineItems>' . $this->getLineItems() . '</lineItems>
                                  <customerProfileId>'.$this->params['customerProfileId'].'</customerProfileId>
                                  <customerPaymentProfileId>'.$this->params['customerPaymentProfileId'].'</customerPaymentProfileId>
                                  <customerShippingAddressId>'.$this->params['customerShippingAddressId'].'</customerShippingAddressId>';
        if (isset($this->params['orderInvoiceNumber']))
        {
            $this->xml .= '
                                  <order>
                                       <invoiceNumber>'.$this->params['invoiceNumber'].'</orderInvoiceNumber>
                                       <description>'.$this->params['description'].'</orderDescription>
                                       <purchaseOrderNumber>'.$this->params['purchaseOrderNumber'].'</orderPurchaseOrderNumber>
                                  </order>';
        }
        $this->xml .= '
                                  <taxExempt>'. $this->params['taxExempt'].'</taxExempt>
                                  <recurringBilling>'.$this->params['recurringBilling'].'</recurringBilling>
                                  <cardCode>'. $this->params['cardCode'].'</cardCode>';
        if (isset($this->params['orderInvoiceNumber']))
        {
            $this->xml .= '
                                  <approvalCode>'. $this->params['approvalCode'].'</approvalCode>';
        }
        $this->xml .= '
                              </' . $type . '>
                          </transaction>
                      </createCustomerProfileTransactionRequest>';
        $this->process();
    }

IRCTC Tatkal Tickets : Individuals can now book only 2 Tatkal tickets from 10 AM to 12 noon using IRCTC

2012-07-10T02:05:00.000-07:00

IRCTC Tatkal Tickets : Individuals can now book only 2 Tatkal tickets from 10 AM to 12 noon using IRCTC

Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), as a part of The Indian Railways’ move to introduce new rules in booking Tatkal train tickets, has said that Individuals will now be permitted to book only two tickets from 10 am to 12 noon. Only two tickets can be booked from one IP address between 10 AM and 12 noon.

Users will now be able to open their account to book tatkal tickets between 10 am and 12 noon only once. This will enable maximum users to access tatkal tickets. IRCTC has disabled the quick book option and cash card option between 10 AM and 12 noon.

Web service agents have been permitted to book only one Tatkal ticket per train per day through the internet only after 12 noon. To ensure its smooth run, an anti-IT fraud squad has been created to detect cases of fraud and to enhance cyberspace surveillance against possible threats to the system.

This move comes as a part of the Railways introducing new rules in booking Tatkal train tickets. Now, booking counters will now open at 10 AM instead of 8 AM, the day before the journey from the originating station.

Meanwhile, the railways has also put in place measures to make online Tatkal bookings easier. High capacity database servers have been installed and the Internet bandwidth has been increased from 344 mbps to 450 mbps. It has also installed Captcha, a technology used to prevent automated software from cornering tatkal tickets by fraudulent means. Agents against whom complaints are received will be blacklisted and their user-id deactivated. A list of such agents will also be put on the IRCTC website.

The Indian Railways expects e-ticket bookings to increase from 3.5 lakh per day as on date to five lakh per day in the next four months. It eventually expects the number of e-ticket bookings to increase to about eight lakh per day in the long term.

Registration form using PHP

2012-07-01T10:09:00.002-07:00

Here is the registration form:

<form id='register' action='register.php' method='post'

    accept-charset='UTF-8'>

<fieldset >

<legend>Register</legend>

<input type='hidden' name='submitted' id='submitted' value='1'/>

<label for='name' >Your Full Name*: </label>

<input type='text' name='name' id='name' maxlength="50" />

<label for='email' >Email Address*:</label>

<input type='text' name='email' id='email' maxlength="50" />

<label for='username' >UserName*:</label>

<input type='text' name='username' id='username' maxlength="50" />

<label for='password' >Password*:</label>

<input type='password' name='password' id='password' maxlength="50" />

<input type='submit' name='Submit' value='Submit' />

</fieldset>

</form>

Form validation

At this point it is a good idea to put some form validation code in place, so we make sure that we have all the data required to create the user account. We need to check if name and email, and password are filled in and that the email is in the proper format.

We can use the free JavaScript form validation script to add form validations quickly and easily, with lesser code.

Here is a sample JavaScript validation code to be used for the sample form we created earlier:

var frmvalidator  = new Validator("register");

frmvalidator.EnableOnPageErrorDisplay();

frmvalidator.EnableMsgsTogether();

frmvalidator.addValidation("name","req","Please provide your name");

frmvalidator.addValidation("email","req","Please provide your email address");

frmvalidator.addValidation("email","email","Please provide a valid email address");

frmvalidator.addValidation("username","req","Please provide a username");

frmvalidator.addValidation("password","req","Please provide a password");

Handling the form submission

Now we have to handle the form data that is submitted.

Here is the sequence (see the file fg_membersite.php in the downloaded source):

function RegisterUser()

{

    if(!isset($_POST['submitted']))

    {

       return false;

    }

    $formvars = array();

    if(!$this->ValidateRegistrationSubmission())

    {

        return false;

    }

    $this->CollectRegistrationSubmission($formvars);

    if(!$this->SaveToDatabase($formvars))

    {

        return false;

    }

    if(!$this->SendUserConfirmationEmail($formvars))

    {

        return false;

    }

    $this->SendAdminIntimationEmail($formvars);

    return true;

}

Saving the data in the database

Now that we gathered all the data, we need to store it into the database.

Here is how we save the form submission to the database.

function SaveToDatabase(&$formvars)

   {

       if(!$this->DBLogin())

       {

           $this->HandleError("Database login failed!");

           return false;

       }

       if(!$this->Ensuretable())

       {

           return false;

       }

       if(!$this->IsFieldUnique($formvars,'email'))

       {

           $this->HandleError("This email is already registered");

           return false;

       }

       if(!$this->IsFieldUnique($formvars,'username'))

       {

           $this->HandleError("This UserName is already used. Please try another username");

           return false;

       }

       if(!$this->InsertIntoDB($formvars))

       {

           $this->HandleError("Inserting to Database failed!");

           return false;

       }

       return true;

   }

Note that you have configured the Database login details in the membersite_config.php file. Most of the cases, you can use "localhost" for database host.

After logging in, we make sure that the table is existing.(If not, the script will create the required table).

Then we make sure that the username and email are unique. If it is not unique, we return error back to the user.

The database table structure

This is the table structure. The CreateTable() function in the fg_membersite.php file creates the table. Here is the code:

function CreateTable()

{

    $qry = "Create Table $this->tablename (".

            "id_user INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,".

            "name VARCHAR( 128 ) NOT NULL ,".

            "email VARCHAR( 64 ) NOT NULL ,".

            "phone_number VARCHAR( 16 ) NOT NULL ,".

            "username VARCHAR( 16 ) NOT NULL ,".

            "password VARCHAR( 32 ) NOT NULL ,".

            "confirmcode VARCHAR(32) ,".

            "PRIMARY KEY ( id_user )".

            ")";

    if(!mysql_query($qry,$this->connection))

    {

        $this->HandleDBError("Error creating the table \nquery was\n $qry");

        return false;

    }

    return true;

}

The id_user field will contain the unique id of the user, and is also the primary key of the table. Notice that we allow 32 characters for the password field. We do this because, as an added security measure, we will store the password in the database encrypted using MD5. Please note that because MD5 is an one-way encryption method, we won't be able to recover the password in case the user forgets it.

Inserting the registration to the table

Here is the code that we use to insert data into the database. We will have all our data available in the $formvars array.

function InsertIntoDB(&$formvars)

{

    $confirmcode = $this->MakeConfirmationMd5($formvars['email']);

    $insert_query = 'insert into '.$this->tablename.'(

            name,

            email,

            username,

            password,

            confirmcode

            )

            values

            (

            "' . $this->SanitizeForSQL($formvars['name']) . '",

            "' . $this->SanitizeForSQL($formvars['email']) . '",

            "' . $this->SanitizeForSQL($formvars['username']) . '",

            "' . md5($formvars['password']) . '",

            "' . $confirmcode . '"

            )';

    if(!mysql_query( $insert_query ,$this->connection))

    {

        $this->HandleDBError("Error inserting data to the table\nquery:$insert_query");

        return false;

    }

    return true;

}

Notice that we use PHP function md5() to encrypt the password before inserting it into the database.

Also, we make the unique confirmation code from the user's email address.

Sending emails

Now that we have the registration in our database, we will send a confirmation email to the user. The user has to click a link in the confirmation email to complete the registration process.

function SendUserConfirmationEmail(&$formvars)

{

    $mailer = new PHPMailer();

    $mailer->CharSet = 'utf-8';

    $mailer->AddAddress($formvars['email'],$formvars['name']);

    $mailer->Subject = "Your registration with ".$this->sitename;

    $mailer->From = $this->GetFromAddress();

    $confirmcode = urlencode($this->MakeConfirmationMd5($formvars['email']));

    $confirm_url = $this->GetAbsoluteURLFolder().'/confirmreg.php?code='.$confirmcode;

    $mailer->Body ="Hello ".$formvars['name']."\r\n\r\n".

    "Thanks for your registration with ".$this->sitename."\r\n".

    "Please click the link below to confirm your registration.\r\n".

    "$confirm_url\r\n".

    "\r\n".

    "Regards,\r\n".

    "Webmaster\r\n".

    $this->sitename;

    if(!$mailer->Send())

    {

        $this->HandleError("Failed sending registration confirmation email.");

        return false;

    }

    return true;

}

PHP Database Access

2012-07-01T02:50:00.000-07:00

Create the database in MySQL

PHP with databases access, we have chosen MySQL database because it is free and also because it is the most widely used in UNIX environment. To this end, the server where the pages are hosted must provide us with tools to create the database or have access to Telnet.

The command to create a MySQL database is the following: mysqladmin -u root create data_base

To create the table you can use your web server's MySQL administration tool or you can write a text file with the content of the equivalent SQL and then indicate the database engine to execute it with the following instruction: mysql -u root base_datos <test.sql

Connection to the database

<html>
<head>
   <title>PHP SWT Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
function Connect()
{
   if (!($link=mysql_connect("localhost","root","")))
   {
      echo "Error connecting to server.";
      exit();
   }
   if (!mysql_select_db("base_datos",$link))
   {
      echo "Error Selecting database.";
      exit();
   }
   return $link;
}

$link=Conectarse();
echo "Connection Success.<br>";

mysql_close($link); //cierra la conexion
?>
</body>
</html>

Querying the database

<?php
function Connect()
{
   if (!($link=mysql_connect("localhost","root","")))
   {
echo "Error connecting to server.";
      exit();
   }
   if (!mysql_select_db("base_datos",$link))
   {
   echo "Error Selecting database.";
exit();
   }
   return $link;
}
?>

<html>
<head>
   <title>PHP SWT Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<H1>Ejemplo de uso de bases de datos con PHP y MySQL</H1>
<?php
   include("connection.phtml");
   $link=Conect();
   $result=mysql_query("select * from users",$link);
?>
   <TABLE BORDER=1 CELLSPACING=1 CELLPADDING=1>
      <TR><TD> ID</TD><TD> Username </TD></TR>
<?php

   while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
      printf("<tr><td> %s</td><td> %s </td></tr>", $row["id"],$row["username"]);
   }
   mysql_free_result($result);
   mysql_close($link);
?>
</table>
</body>
</html>

Inserting records to the database

<?php
   include("connection.phtml");
   $link=Conect();
   $id=$_GET['id'];
   $username=$_GET['username'];
   mysql_query("insert into users(id,username) values ('$id','$username')",$link);

   header("Location: thanks.phtml");
?>

Introduction to Preg in PHP

2012-06-28T10:47:00.003-07:00

The PHP function, preg_grep, is used to search an array for specific patterns and then return a new array based on that filtering. There are two ways to return the results. You can return them as is, or you can invert them (instead of only returning what matches, it would only return what does not match.) It is phrased as: preg_grep ( search_pattern, $your_array, optional_inverse ) The search_pattern needs to be a regular expression. If you are unfamiliar with them This Article gives you an overview of the syntax.

 <? 
 $data = array(0, 1, 2, 'three', 4, 5, 'six', 7, 8, 'nine', 10); 
 $mod1 = preg_grep("/4|5|6/", $data); 
 $mod2 = preg_grep("/[0-9]/", $data, PREG_GREP_INVERT); 
 print_r($mod1); 
 echo "<br>"; 
 print_r($mod2); 
 ?>

This code would result in the following data:
Array ( [4] => 4 [5] => 5 )
Array ( [3] => three [6] => six [9] => nine )

First we assign our $data variable. This is a list of numbers, some in alpha form, others in numeric. The first thing we run is called $mod1. Here we are searching for anything that contains 4, 5, or 6. When our result is printed below we only get 4 and 5, because 6 was written as 'six' so it did not match our search.

Next we run $mod2, which is searching for anything that contains a numeric character. But this time we include PREG_GREP_INVERT. This will invert our data, so instead of outputting numbers, it outputs all of our entries that where not numeric (three, six and nine).

Preg_Match :

The Preg_Match PHP function is used to search a string, and return a 1 or 0. If the search was successful a 1 will be returned, and if it was not found a 0 will be returned. Although other variables can be added, it is most simply phrased as: preg_match(search_pattern, your_string). The search_pattern needs to be a regular expression.

 <? 
 $data = "I had a box of cerial for breakfast today, and then I drank some juice.";
 if (preg_match("/juice/", $data))
 {
 echo "You had juice.<br>";
 }
 else
 {
 echo "You had did not have juice.<br>";
 }
 if (preg_match("/eggs/", $data))
 {
 echo "You had eggs.<br>";
 }
 else
 {
 echo "You had did not have eggs.<br>";
 } 
 ?>

The code above uses preg_match to check for a key word (first juice then egg) and replies based on whether it is true (1) or false (0). Because it returns these two values it is most often used in a conditional statement

Preg_Match_All :

Preg_Match_All is used to search a string for specific patterns and stores the results in an array. Unlike preg_match which stops searching after it finds a match, preg_match_all searches the entire string and records all matches. It is phrased as: preg_match_all (pattern, string, $array, optional_ordering, optional_offset)

 <? $data = "The party will start at 10:30 pm and run untill 12:30 am"; 
 preg_match_all('/(\d+:\d+)\s*(am|pm)/', $data, $match, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);
 echo "Full: <br>"; 
 print_r($match[0]); 
 echo "<p>Raw: <br>"; 
 print_r($match[1]); 
 echo "<p>Tags: <br>"; 
 print_r($match[2]); 
 ?>

In our first example we use PREG_PATTERN_ORDER. We are searching for 2 things; one is the time, the other is it's am/pm tag. Our results are outputted to $match, as an array where $match[0] contains all matches, $match[1] contains all data matching our first sub-serach (the time) and $match[2] contains all data matching our second sub-search (am/pm).

 <? $data = "The party will start at 10:30 pm and run untill 12:30 am"; 
 preg_match_all('/(\d+:\d+)\s*(am|pm)/', $data, $match, PREG_SET_ORDER); 
 echo "First: <br>"; 
 echo $match[0][0] . " , " . $match[0][1] . " , ". $match [0][2] ."<br>"; 
 echo "Second: <br>"; 
 echo $match[1][0] . " , " . $match[1][1] . " , ". $match [1][2] ."<br>";
 ?>

In our second example we use PREG_SET_ORDER. This puts each full result into an array. The first result is $match[0], with $match[0][0] being the full match, $match[0][1] being the first sub-match and $match[0][2] being the second sub-match.

Preg_replace :

The preg_replace function is used to do a find-and-replace on a string or an array. We can give it one thing to find and replace (for example it seeks out the word 'him' and changes it to 'her') or we can give it a full list of things (an array) to search for, each with a corresponding replacement. It is phrased as preg_replace ( search_for, replace_with, your_data , optional_limit, optional_count ) The limit will default to -1 which is no limit. Remember your_data can be a string or an array.

<? 
 $data = "The cat likes to sit on the fence. He also likes to climb the tree."; 
 
 $find ="/the/"; 
 $replace ="a"; 
 
 //1. replace single word 
 Echo "$data <br>"; 
 Echo preg_replace ($find, $replace, $data); 
 
 //create arrays 
 $find2 = array ('/the/', '/cat/'); 
 $replace2 = array ('a', 'dog'); 
 
 //2. replace with array values 
 Echo preg_replace ($find2, $replace2, $data); 
 
 //3. Replace just once
 Echo preg_replace ($find2, $replace2, $data, 1); 
 
 //4. Keep a count of replacements 
 $count = 0; 
 Echo preg_replace ($find2, $replace2, $data, -1, $count); 
 Echo "<br>You have made $count replacements"; 
 
 ?>

In our first example we simply replace 'the' with 'a'. As you can see these are cAse seNsiTIvE. Then we set up an array, so in our second example we are replacing both the words 'the' and 'cat'. In our third example, we set the limit to 1, so each word is only replaced one time. Finally in our 4th example, we keep count of how many replacements we have made.

Preg_Spilit :

The function Preg_Spilit is used to take a string, and put it into an array. The string is broken up into different values in the array based upon your input. It is phrased as preg_split ( split_pattern, your_data, optional_limit, optional_flags )

 <?php 
 $str = 'I like goats. You like cats. He likes dogs.'; 
 $chars = preg_split('//', $str); 
 print_r($chars); 
 echo "<p>"; 
 $words= preg_split('/ /', $str); 
 print_r($words); 
 echo "<p>"; 
 $sentances= preg_split('/\./', $str, -1 , PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY); 
 print_r($sentances); 
 ?>

In the code above we preform three splits. In our first, we split the data by each character. In the second, we split it with a blank space, thus giving each word (and not each letter) an array entry. And in our third example we use a '.' period to split the data, therefor giving each sentence it's own array entry.

Because in our last example we use a '.' period to split, a new entry is started after our final period, so we add the flag PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY so that no empty results are returned. Other available flags are PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE which also captures the character you are splitting by (our "." for example) and PREG_SPLIT_OFFSET_CAPTURE which captures the offset in characters where the split has occurred.

Send Mail using SMTP with PHPMailer and GMail

2012-06-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

Website owners can use their own SMTP server for sending email messages from their website, but it makes sense even than to use GMail for sending mail. The chance is big that your websites IP address is on a blacklist if your site is on hosted by a shared web hosting provider. If not or you host your site on your own server, there is always a risk that your IP address get blacklisted. Because of some limitations, the SMTP server from Google is a good choice applications with less than 500 recipients a day

Requirements

You need for this PHPMailer code example a PHP5 enabled web host (I did tests only on Linux), the port 465 need to be open and of course you need a GMail or Google Apps account.

PHPMailer tutorial for GMail and Google Apps

GMail account or setup your domain for Google applications.

Download a recent version of PHPMailer (I’m using the version 5.02)

Check with your web hosting provider that port 465 (TCP out) is open, if not ask him to open that port

Include the PHPMailer class file: require_once('phpmailer/class.phpmailer.php');

Create those two constant variables to store your GMail login and password. Use the login for your Google Apps mail account if you have one.

define('GUSER', 'you@gmail.com'); // GMail username

define('GPWD', 'password'); // GMail password

Use the following function to send the e-mail messages (add the function in one of your included files):

function smtpmailer($to, $from, $from_name, $subject, $body) {

global $error;

$mail = new PHPMailer(); // create a new object

$mail->IsSMTP(); // enable SMTP

$mail->SMTPDebug = 0; // debugging: 1 = errors and messages, 2 = messages only

$mail->SMTPAuth = true; // authentication enabled

$mail->SMTPSecure = 'ssl'; // secure transfer enabled REQUIRED for GMail

$mail->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com';

$mail->Port = 465;

$mail->Username = GUSER;

$mail->Password = GPWD;

$mail->SetFrom($from, $from_name);

$mail->Subject = $subject;

$mail->Body = $body;

$mail->AddAddress($to);

if(!$mail->Send()) {

$error = 'Mail error: '.$mail->ErrorInfo;

return false;

} else {

$error = 'Message sent!';

return true;

}

Call the function within your code:

smtpmailer('to@mail.com', '', 'from@mail.com', 'yourName', 'test mail message', 'Hello World!');

Use this more “advanced” usage inside your application:

if (smtpmailer('to@mail.com', 'from@mail.com', 'yourName', 'test mail message', 'Hello World!')) {

// do something

}

if (!empty($error)) echo $error;

Optimizing PHP Code

2012-06-26T06:18:00.000-07:00

Optimized and more efficient PHP code

echo is faster than print.
require_once() is expensive
If a method can be static, declare it static. Speed improvement is by a factor of 4.
Unset your variables to free memory, especially large arrays.
Use echo's multiple parameters instead of string concatenation.
Set the maxvalue for your for-loops before and not in the loop.
str_replace is faster than preg_replace, but strtr is faster than str_replace by a factor of 4
Avoid magic like __get, __set, __autoload
Use full paths in includes and requires, less time spent on resolving the OS paths.
If you need to find out the time when the script started executing, INSERT:CONTENT:END SERVER['REQUEST_TIME'] is preferred to time()
See if you can use strncasecmp, strpbrk and stripos instead of regex
str_replace is faster than preg_replace, but strtr is faster than str_replace by a factor of 4
If the function, such as string replacement function, accepts both arrays and single characters as arguments, and if your argument list is not too long, consider writing a few redundant replacement statements, passing one character at a time, instead of one line of code that accepts arrays as search and replace arguments.
It's better to use select statements than multi if, else if, statements.
Error suppression with @ is very slow.
Turn on apache's mod_deflate
Close your database connections when you're done with them
$row['id'] is 7 times faster than $row[id]
Error messages are expensive
Do not use functions inside of for loop, such as for ($x=0; $x < count($array); $x) The count() function gets called each time.
Incrementing a local variable in a method is the fastest. Nearly the same as calling a local variable in a function.
Incrementing a global variable is 2 times slow than a local var.
Incrementing an object property (eg. $this->prop++) is 3 times slower than a local variable.
Incrementing an undefined local variable is 9-10 times slower than a pre-initialized one.
Just declaring a global variable without using it in a function also slows things down (by about the same amount as incrementing a local var). PHP probably does a check to see if the global exists.
Method invocation appears to be independent of the number of methods defined in the class because I added 10 more methods to the test class (before and after the test method) with no change in performance.
Methods in derived classes run faster than ones defined in the base class.
A function call with one parameter and an empty function body takes about the same time as doing 7-8 $localvar++operations. A similar method call is of course about 15 $localvar++ operations.
Surrounding your string by ' instead of “ will make things interpret a little faster since php looks for variables inside ”..." but not inside '...'. Of course you can only do this when you don't need to have variables in the string.
When echoing strings it's faster to separate them by comma instead of dot. Note: This only works with echo, which is a function that can take several strings as arguments.
A PHP script will be served at least 2-10 times slower than a static HTML page by Apache. Try to use more static HTML pages and fewer scripts.
Your PHP scripts are recompiled every time unless the scripts are cached. Install a PHP caching product to typically increase performance by 25-100% by removing compile times.
Cache as much as possible. Use memcached - memcached is a high-performance memory object caching system intended to speed up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load. OP code caches are useful so that your script does not have to be compiled on every request
When working with strings and you need to check that the string is either of a certain length you'd understandably would want to use the strlen() function. This function is pretty quick since it's operation does not perform any calculation but merely return the already known length of a string available in the zval structure (internal C struct used to store variables in PHP). However because strlen() is a function it is still somewhat slow because the function call requires several operations such as lowercase & hashtable lookup followed by the execution of said function. In some instance you can improve the speed of your code by using an isset() trick.

Example:if (strlen($foo) < 5) { echo "Foo is too short"; }

vs.

if (!isset($foo{5})) { echo "Foo is too short"; }

Calling isset() happens to be faster then strlen() because unlike strlen(), isset() is a language construct and not a function meaning that it's execution does not require function lookups and lowercase. This means you have virtually no overhead on top of the actual code that determines the string's length.
When incrementing or decrementing the value of the variable $i++ happens to be a tad slower then ++$i. This is something PHP specific and does not apply to other languages, so don't go modifying your C or Java code thinking it'll suddenly become faster, it won't. ++$i happens to be faster in PHP because instead of 4 opcodes used for $i++ you only need 3. Post incrementation actually causes in the creation of a temporary var that is then incremented. While pre-incrementation increases the original value directly. This is one of the optimization that opcode optimized like Zend's PHP optimizer. It is a still a good idea to keep in mind since not all opcode optimizers perform this optimization and there are plenty of ISPs and servers running without an opcode optimizer.
Not everything has to be OOP, often it is too much overhead, each method and object call consumes a lot of memory.
Do not implement every data structure as a class, arrays are useful, too
Don't split methods too much, think, which code you will really re-use
You can always split the code of a method later, when needed
Make use of the countless predefined functions
If you have very time consuming functions in your code, consider writing them as C extensions
Profile your code. A profiler shows you, which parts of your code consumes how many time. The Xdebug debugger already contains a profiler. Profiling shows you the bottlenecks in overview
mod_gzip which is available as an Apache module compresses your data on the fly and can reduce the data to transfer up to 80%

PHP Array Functions

2012-06-19T22:52:00.000-07:00

array_chunk() Definition and Usage
The array_chunk() function splits an array into chunks of new arrays. Syntax
array_chunk(array,size,preserve_key)

Parameter	Description
array	Required. Specifies the array to use
size	Required. Specifies how many elements each new array will contain
preserve_key	Optional. Possible values: true - Preserves the keys from the original array. false - Default. Does not preserve the keys from the original array.

Example 1

<?php
$a=array("a"=>"Cat","b"=>"Dog","c"=>"Horse","d"=>"Cow");
print_r(array_chunk($a,2));
?>

The output of the code above will be:

Array (
[0] => Array ( [a] => Cat [b] => Dog )
[1] => Array ( [c] => Horse [d] => Cow )
)

Example 2

<?php
$a=array("a"=>"Cat","b"=>"Dog","c"=>"Horse","d"=>"Cow");
print_r(array_chunk($a,2,true));
?>

The output of the code above will be:

Array (
[0] => Array ( [a] => Cat [b] => Dog )
[1] => Array ( [c] => Horse [d] => Cow )
)

Function	Description	PHP
array()	Creates an array	3
array_change_key_case()	Returns an array with all keys in lowercase or uppercase	4
array_chunk()	Splits an array into chunks of arrays	4
array_combine()	Creates an array by using one array for keys and another for its values	5
array_count_values()	Returns an array with the number of occurrences for each value	4
array_diff()	Compares array values, and returns the differences	4
array_diff_assoc()	Compares array keys and values, and returns the differences	4
array_diff_key()	Compares array keys, and returns the differences	5
array_diff_uassoc()	Compares array keys and values, with an additional user-made function check, and returns the differences	5
array_diff_ukey()	Compares array keys, with an additional user-made function check, and returns the differences	5
array_fill()	Fills an array with values	4
array_filter()	Filters elements of an array using a user-made function	4
array_flip()	Exchanges all keys with their associated values in an array	4
array_intersect()	Compares array values, and returns the matches	4
array_intersect_assoc()	Compares array keys and values, and returns the matches	4
array_intersect_key()	Compares array keys, and returns the matches	5
array_intersect_uassoc()	Compares array keys and values, with an additional user-made function check, and returns the matches	5
array_intersect_ukey()	Compares array keys, with an additional user-made function check, and returns the matches	5
array_key_exists()	Checks if the specified key exists in the array	4
array_keys()	Returns all the keys of an array	4
array_map()	Sends each value of an array to a user-made function, which returns new values	4
array_merge()	Merges one or more arrays into one array	4
array_merge_recursive()	Merges one or more arrays into one array	4
array_multisort()	Sorts multiple or multi-dimensional arrays	4
array_pad()	Inserts a specified number of items, with a specified value, to an array	4
array_pop()	Deletes the last element of an array	4
array_product()	Calculates the product of the values in an array	5
array_push()	Inserts one or more elements to the end of an array	4
array_rand()	Returns one or more random keys from an array	4
array_reduce()	Returns an array as a string, using a user-defined function	4
array_reverse()	Returns an array in the reverse order	4
array_search()	Searches an array for a given value and returns the key	4
array_shift()	Removes the first element from an array, and returns the value of the removed element	4
array_slice()	Returns selected parts of an array	4
array_splice()	Removes and replaces specified elements of an array	4
array_sum()	Returns the sum of the values in an array	4
array_udiff()	Compares array values in a user-made function and returns an array	5
array_udiff_assoc()	Compares array keys, and compares array values in a user-made function, and returns an array	5
array_udiff_uassoc()	Compares array keys and array values in user-made functions, and returns an array	5
array_uintersect()	Compares array values in a user-made function and returns an array	5
array_uintersect_assoc()	Compares array keys, and compares array values in a user-made function, and returns an array	5
array_uintersect_uassoc()	Compares array keys and array values in user-made functions, and returns an array	5
array_unique()	Removes duplicate values from an array	4
array_unshift()	Adds one or more elements to the beginning of an array	4
array_values()	Returns all the values of an array	4
array_walk()	Applies a user function to every member of an array	3
array_walk_recursive()	Applies a user function recursively to every member of an array	5
arsort()	Sorts an array in reverse order and maintain index association	3
asort()	Sorts an array and maintain index association	3
compact()	Create array containing variables and their values	4
count()	Counts elements in an array, or properties in an object	3
current()	Returns the current element in an array	3
each()	Returns the current key and value pair from an array	3
end()	Sets the internal pointer of an array to its last element	3
extract()	Imports variables into the current symbol table from an array	3
in_array()	Checks if a specified value exists in an array	4
key()	Fetches a key from an array	3
krsort()	Sorts an array by key in reverse order	3
ksort()	Sorts an array by key	3
list()	Assigns variables as if they were an array	3
natcasesort()	Sorts an array using a case insensitive "natural order" algorithm	4
natsort()	Sorts an array using a "natural order" algorithm	4
next()	Advance the internal array pointer of an array	3
pos()	Alias of current()	3
prev()	Rewinds the internal array pointer	3
range()	Creates an array containing a range of elements	3
reset()	Sets the internal pointer of an array to its first element	3
rsort()	Sorts an array in reverse order	3
shuffle()	Shuffles an array	3
sizeof()	Alias of count()	3
sort()	Sorts an array	3
uasort()	Sorts an array with a user-defined function and maintain index association	3
uksort()	Sorts an array by keys using a user-defined function	3
usort()	Sorts an array by values using a user-defined function	3

PHP Array Constants

Constant	Description	PHP
CASE_LOWER	Used with array_change_key_case() to convert array keys to lower case
CASE_UPPER	Used with array_change_key_case() to convert array keys to upper case
SORT_ASC	Used with array_multisort() to sort in ascending order
SORT_DESC	Used with array_multisort() to sort in descending order
SORT_REGULAR	Used to compare items normally
SORT_NUMERIC	Used to compare items numerically
SORT_STRING	Used to compare items as strings
SORT_LOCALE_STRING	Used to compare items as strings, based on the current locale	4
COUNT_NORMAL
COUNT_RECURSIVE
EXTR_OVERWRITE
EXTR_SKIP
EXTR_PREFIX_SAME
EXTR_PREFIX_ALL
EXTR_PREFIX_INVALID
EXTR_PREFIX_IF_EXISTS
EXTR_IF_EXISTS
EXTR_REFS

PHP HTML basic tips, tricks

2012-06-19T22:23:00.002-07:00

PHP HTML basic tips and tricks

PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language. The goal of the language is to allow web developers to write dynamically generated pages quickly. In the course of web development of using PHP PHP and HTML interact a lot. PHP can generate HTML, and HTML can pass information to PHP.

Encoding/decoding when passing a data through a form or URL
Certain characters, for example ‘&’, have special significance in HTML, and should be represented by HTML entities if they are to preserve their meanings. There are several stages for which encoding is important. Assuming that you have a string $data, which contains the string you want to pass on in a non-encoded way, these are the relevant stages.

Passing a value through HTML FORM you must include it in double quotes, and htmlspecialchars() the whole value. For exampe see the code below

<?php echo “<input name=’data’ type=’hidden’ value=’” . htmlspecialchars($data) . “‘>”; ?>

While passing a value through URL you must encode it with urlencode(). It will convert all non-alphanumeric characters except -_. with a percent (%) sign followed by two hex digits and spaces encoded as plus (+) signs. See example below.
<?php echo “<a href=’” . htmlspecialchars(“/nextpage.php?stage=23&data=” .urlencode($data) . “‘>\n”; ?>

Creating a PHP arrays in a HTML form

To get your FORM result sent as an array to your PHP script you name the INPUT, SELECT, TEXTAREA elements like this:
<input name=”MyArray[]“>
<input name=”MyArray[]“>
<input name=”MyArray[]“>
<input name=”MyArray[]“>

If you do not specify the keys, the array gets filled in the order the elements appear in the form. Above example will contain keys 0, 1, 2 and 3. Notice the square brackets after the variable name, that’s what makes it an array. You can group the elements into different arrays by assigning the same name to different elements:
<input name=”MyArray[]“>
<input name=”MyArray[]“>
<input name=”MyOtherArray[]“>
<input name=”MyOtherArray[]“>
This produces two arrays, MyArray and MyOtherArray, that gets sent to the PHP script. It’s also possible to assign specific keys to your arrays:
<input name=”AnotherArray[]“>
<input name=”AnotherArray[]“>
<input name=”AnotherArray[email]“>
<input name=”AnotherArray[phone]“>
The AnotherArray array will now contain the keys 0, 1, email and phone.

Getting results from a select multiple HTML tag.
The select multiple tag in an HTML construct allows users to select multiple items from a list. These items are then passed to the action handler for the form. The problem is that they are all passed with the same widget name. I.e.
<select name=”var” multiple=”yes”>
Each selected option will arrive at the action handler as var=option1, var=option2, var=option3. Each option will overwrite the contents of the previous $var variable. The solution is to use PHP’s “array from form element” feature. The following should be used:
<select name=”var[]” multiple=”yes”>
Now first item becomes $var[0], the next $var[1], etc.

Passing a variable from Javascript to PHP
Since Javascript is a client-side technology, and PHP is a server-side technology, the two languages cannot directly share variables. It is, however, possible to pass variables between the two. One way of accomplishing this is to generate Javascript code with PHP, and have the browser refresh itself, passing specific variables back to the PHP script. The example below shows precisely how to do this — it allows PHP code to capture screen height and width, something that is normally only possible on the client side.
<?php
if (isset($_GET['width']) AND isset($_GET['height'])) {
// output the geometry variables
echo “Screen width is: “. $_GET['width'] .”<br />\n”;
echo “Screen height is: “. $_GET['height'] .”<br />\n”;
} else {
// pass the geometry variables
// (preserve the original query string
// — post variables will need to handled differently)

echo “<script language=’javascript’>\n”;
echo “ location.href=\”${_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']}?${_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']}”
. “&width=\” + screen.width + \”&height=\” + screen.height;\n”;
echo “</script>\n”;
exit();
}
?>

PHP Arrays Tutorials

2012-06-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

PHP Arrays Tutorial and PHP Array Examples

An array in PHP is actually an ordered map. A map is a type that maps values to keys. This type is optimized in several ways, so you can use it as a real array, or a list (vector), hashtable (which is an implementation of a map), dictionary, collection, stack, queue and probably more. Because you can have another PHP array as a value, you can also quite easily simulate trees.

PHP Array Syntax: Create an Array
language-construct array() is used to create an array in PHP. See example below

array( [key =>] value
, …
)
key: key may be an integer or string
value: A value can be of any PHP type

Examples
$arr = array(“foo” => “bar”, 12 => true);
echo $arr["foo"]; this will print bar
echo $arr[12]; this will print 1

if you provide the brackets with no key specified, then the maximum of the existing integer indices +1 is taken as key. see below

$arr = array(5 => 1, 12 => 2); This will create an array with 2 elements
$arr[] = 56; new key will be maximum key + 1 i.e $arr[13] = 56
$arr["x"] = 42; This adds a new element to the array with key “x”

array(5 => 43, 32, 56, “b” => 12); This array is the same as following.
array(5 => 43, 6 => 32, 7 => 56, “b” => 12);

Handling arrays from html form inputs to php scripts
Following example will show we can use an array from html form inputs.

HTML form with array
<input type=”checkbox” name=”selected_ids[]” value=”1?>
<input type=”checkbox” name=”selected_ids[]” value=”2?>
<input type=”checkbox” name=”selected_ids[]” value=”3?>
<input type=”checkbox” name=”selected_ids[]” value=”11?>
<input type=”checkbox” name=”selected_ids[]” value=”12?>
<input type=”checkbox” name=”selected_ids[]” value=”13?>

When we submit above form, it will generate $_POST['selected_ids'][] array to the form handling php script. This array holds all selected checkbox values from above html form. foreach() construct can be used to extract values from the array. Following code example will show how we can extract those values from the returning array.

foreach ($_POST['selected_ids'] as $key => $value) {
echo “Key: $key; Value: $value<br>”;
}
for example if 1,2 and 12 is selected from the above html form then above code will print
Key: 0 Value: 1
Key: 1 Value: 2
Key: 2 Value: 12

PHP: How to detect / get the real client IP address of website visitors

2012-06-14T01:54:00.004-07:00

echo $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];

function get_ip_address() {
    foreach (array('HTTP_CLIENT_IP', 'HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR', 'HTTP_X_FORWARDED', 'HTTP_X_CLUSTER_CLIENT_IP', 'HTTP_FORWARDED_FOR', 'HTTP_FORWARDED', 'REMOTE_ADDR') as $key) {
        if (array_key_exists($key, $_SERVER) === true) {
            foreach (explode(',', $_SERVER[$key]) as $ip) {
                if (filter_var($ip, FILTER_VALIDATE_IP) !== false) {
                    return $ip;
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Server variables

GATEWAY_INTERFACE = $_SERVER['GATEWAY_INTERFACE'];
SERVER_ADDR = $_SERVER['SERVER_ADDR'];
SERVER_NAME = $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];
SERVER_SOFTWARE = $_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'];
SERVER_PROTOCOL = $_SERVER['SERVER_PROTOCOL'];
REQUEST_METHOD = $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'];
REQUEST_TIME = $_SERVER['REQUEST_TIME'];
QUERY_STRING = $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
DOCUMENT_ROOT = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];
HTTP_ACCEPT = $_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT'];
HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET = $_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET'];
HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING = $_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING'];
HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE = $_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'];
HTTP_CONNECTION = $_SERVER['HTTP_CONNECTION'];
HTTP_HOST = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
HTTP_REFERER = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];
HTTP_USER_AGENT = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
HTTPS = $_SERVER['HTTPS'];
REMOTE_ADDR = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
REMOTE_HOST = $_SERVER['REMOTE_HOST'];
REMOTE_PORT = $_SERVER['REMOTE_PORT'];
SCRIPT_FILENAME = $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'];
SERVER_ADMIN = $_SERVER['SERVER_ADMIN'];
SERVER_PORT = $_SERVER['SERVER_PORT'];
SERVER_SIGNATURE = $_SERVER['SERVER_SIGNATURE'];
PATH_TRANSLATED = $_SERVER['PATH_TRANSLATED'];
SCRIPT_NAME = $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'];
REQUEST_URI = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
PHP_AUTH_DIGEST = $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_DIGEST'];
PHP_AUTH_USER = $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER'];
PHP_AUTH_PW = $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_PW'];
AUTH_TYPE = $_SERVER['AUTH_TYPE'];

PHP : Session And Cookie

2012-06-11T10:01:00.001-07:00

PHP : Session And Cookie

difference between cookies and sessions is that cookies are stored in the user's browser, and sessions are not.
This difference determines what each is best used for. A cookie can keep information in the user's browser until deleted.
If a person has a login and password, this can be set as a cookie in their browser so they do not have to re-login to your website every time they visit.
You can store almost anything in a browser cookie. The trouble is that a user can block cookies or delete them at any time.
If, for example, your website's shopping cart utilized cookies, and a person had their browser set to block them, then they could not shop at your website.

HCL interview questions for PHP

2012-06-08T03:40:00.002-07:00

HCL interview questions for PHP

1.what is ajax?
2.different response types in ajax?
3.different states in ajax?
4.what is json?
5.how to parse json response data?
6.how do u place two div elements side by side?
7.how do u place two images one on another?
8.stored procedures?
9.diff b/w echo and print?
10."sk.aariz@gmail.com" how to get the string b/w two dots(.) using php string functions?
11.what is shift operator?
12.what is array_shift?
13 .what is array_unshift?
14.array_combine().
$array1 = (a=>abc,a=>bc,a=>ac,a=>abcd);
$array2 = (azaad,aariz);
what ia the o/p of array_combine()?
15.how to override inline css with external css?
16.how will you validate input data in javascript and in php?(cross site scripting)
17.echo print('hello'); what is the o/p?
18.CSS sprite technique?
19.document types in html?
20.Difference between HTML and DHTML?
21.How willa create the following layout using div's?
22.what is the difference between padding and margin?
23.I have two iframes in a page how can I pass variables of one frame to another using javascript?
24.Explain singleton pattern?
25.What is Encapsulation?How will you achieve that in PHP?
26 What is load balencing? How will you do it?
27.How will you pass sessions from one server to another?
28.What is opcode & opcode cache?
29.How will you fix cross browser issues for CSS and JAVASCRIPT?
30.Is there any place in your project where the application is running slow?How will you fix that?
31.What is CSS sprite technique?
32.AJAX states?
33.In which variable you will get the response states?
34.What are environment variables.
35.Difference between PHP4 and PHP5?
36.How will you improve the page performence in front-end(front-end caching)?
37.Diff between a div teg and a span tag?
38.Explain CSS box model?
39.What is cascading?
40.Separating a number from a string using javascript?
41.CSS hacks?
42.What are access specifiers in PHP?
43.Diffenrece between Abstract class and Interface?
44.What are the different mysql Engines?
45.What is a persistance cookie?
46.What is static keyword?
47.Different query optimization techniques?
48.Inheritance in Javascript?
49.Difference between visibility :hidden and display:none?
50.XHTML Rules?
51.How will you optimize php applications?
52.What are the properties of CSS "position" ?
53.Different types of joins in mysql?
54.How will you find whether your browser supports cookies using javascript?
55.

How will you get student name and total marks of a first rank student?

56.

one employee can take interview to any number of candidates.How will you get count of candidates an employee taken interview?

What is Moodle?

2012-06-07T02:20:00.001-07:00

What is Moodle?

Moodle is a Learning Management System, Course Management System, or Virtual Learning Environment, depending on which term you prefer. Its goal is to give teachers and students the tools they need to teach and learn. Moodle comes from a background of Social Constructionist pedagogy, however, it can be used to support any style of teaching and learning. There are other types of software systems that are important for educational institutions, for example ePortfolios, Student Information Systems and Content repositories. Generally, Moodle does not try to re-invent these areas of functionality. Instead, tries to be the best LMS possible, and then interoperate gracefully with other systems that provide the other areas of functionality. It is, however, perfectly possible to use Moodle as a stand-alone system, without integrating it with anything else. Moodle is a web application written in PHP. Moodle is open source. Copyright is owned by individual contributors, not assigned to a single entity, although the company Moodle Pty Ltd in Perth Australia, owned by Moodle's founder Martin Dougiamas, manages the project.

What Is Moodle?

Moodle is a free, online, open source course management system

used in an increasing number of universities to conduct online and

blended courses as well as to enhance traditional classroom

courses..

Getting Started

Moodle allows instructors to add all content and activities on the course homepage. Students are able to see

and access all related content and activities from the main course page rather than having to navigate between

various areas of the course to access different types of materials. Instructors group content and activities into

modules which can be organized by topics or by weeks.

Different areas in a Moodle course include: the Activities block , the People block ,

the Administration block , Settings , Editing , Add a Resource area , and Add an Activity .

Moodle: Introduction

The Activities Block

The Activities block allows users to view a list of all course activities arranged by

category. This block will only display categories that have items available to participants.

The People Block

The People block displays the names, assigned roles, and profiles of every currently

enrolled participant in the course. You can access a user’s profile by clicking on their

name. You can edit your own profile by clicking on your name and choosing the Edit

Profile option.

The Administration Block

The Administration block is the most important block in your course. The Turn Editing

On option enables you to add activities and resources to the course. After turning editing

on there will be several small icons in each block and topic. These include arrows for

altering the position (left, right, up, or down), the update icon, the delete icon, and the eye

icon.

Changing Your Settings

To adjust the course settings, click the Settings item located under Administration block.

Here you can set the course availability to students. Additionally you may add a short

summary of the course, as well as change the number of topics.

Icons

*Note: You must create groups and set the activity to group mode to have an impact on this. Once something is in group mode, the

icon will look like .

Using the eye icons: When eye icon is ‘open’ the item is visible and accessible to participants. When the icon

is clicked the eye will ‘close’ and the item becomes hidden and inaccessible to participants. This function is

useful when you want to keep an item in your course (rather than deleting it), but do not want participants to

have access to it.

Icon Effect Icon Effect Icon Effect Icon Effect

Edit item

Close/Hide

item Delete/Remove Groups Icon*

See all

weeks/topics

Open/Show

Item Indent/shift right Move here

See one

week/topic

Help Move Icon*

Make Current (highlight)

week/topic

Making a Course Visible to Students

1. Click on Settings under the Administration block.

2. Under the Availability block, set the Availability

drop-down to This course is available to

students.

3. Click on

Note: Your course will remain in gray on the Moodle

homepage until your next login.

Changing the Number of Modules (aka Topics)

Each Moodle course, by default, is created with 10 modules (topics).

To change the number of modules, follow these steps:

1. Click on Settings under the Administration panel.

2. Under the Notes box, you will see a drop-down menu for

Number of weeks/topics. Click on the menu and select

the number of modules you want.

3. Click on .

Changing the Course Theme

Each Moodle course is created with the default Adelphi Moodle

theme. To change the theme, follow these steps:

1. Click on Settings under the Administration panel.

2. Under the Notes box, you will see a drop-down menu for

Force Theme. Click on the menu and select the desired theme.

3. Click on .

Changing the Course Description on the Moodle Homepage

1. Click on Settings under the Administration panel.

2. In the Notes box describe the course in no more than

three sentences.

3. Click on .

Navigating the Course

In order to return to the course homepage from any

other place in the course (e.g. a discussion forum,

or a resource), click on the course name (or ID) in

the upper left corner underneath the Adelphi logo,

or click on the course number on the bottom of the page.

Organizing Modules

The default view shows all course materials organized by modules as the instructor has organized them.

Modules can be displayed in different ways:

 Change visibility to students by clicking the eye icon.

 Collapsed modules by using the collapse button of the

module that should be the last one visible.

 Expand modules by using the expand button of the module

that should be the last one visible.

 Highlight the current module by using the highlight icon.

Display by Type of Content

The activities block provides a list of the types of activities deployed in the course. Clicking on a category, such

as forums, resources, or assignments, will bring up a list with all items in that category.

Display by User Activity

1. In the People block, click on Participants.

2. The following page will have the information on the

student like Address and Last Access.

3. To have a more in-depth view of student’s activity, click

on the student’s name.

4. From the students profile click on

the Activity Reports tab.

5. Orgnanized by each topic is the student’s

activity in your class. You can see the

number of times a student accessed an

activity, and the last time of access.

Allowing Pop-Up Windows to Appear in Mozilla Firefox

When Firefox prompts you that it has blocked a

popup, click Options (or Preferences) and

select Allow popups for moodle.adelphi.edu.

Assigning Roles

The Assign Roles option allows you to enroll users in your course and provide them with a specific role.

Teachers can typically assign the roles of Teacher, Non-editing teacher, and Student.

 Note: Your students will be put on your Participants list as they register in the C.L.A.S.S. system. The

list will be updated regularly throughout the day. However, if a student is not showing up in your Moodle

Course, use the Assign Roles option to add them in (or add in another Teacher or Non-Editing teacher, if

you wish).

Teacher Non-editing teacher Student

Teachers can do anything

within a course, including

changing the activities and

grading students.

This role is similar to that of

Teaching Assistant. A nonediting

teacher can enter

grades for the students, but

he/she cannot edit the contents

of the course.

Students have access to the

course information provided by

the instructor and are able to

post responses in the forums,

contribute to wikis, etc.

Adding a User to Your Course

To add a user to your course and assign them one of the above roles,

follow these steps:

1. In the Administration block, click on Assign Roles.

2. Click on the role you wish to assign to the specific

user/users (Teacher, Non-editing teacher,

or Student).

3. Type in the name of the user you wish to add and

click on Search.

4. In the Search results box, select the name of the

user and click on the left-sided triangle. The user will

appear in the existing users box to the left.

5. The student’s name and email will now appear in the

existing users box.

Removing a User from Your Course

1. To remove a user from the course, select their name

from the existing users box and click on the rightsided

triangle.

Note: This step cannot be undone and a student’s data

will be erased from the course.

Quickmail

Sending an Email to Your Students

1. In the Quickmail block, click on Compose.

2. Check the box next to the name of the

student you wish to email.

3. Type in a Subject for your email

4. Type in the text of your email in the Message

box.

5. Optional: If you wish to send an attachment,

click on

6. Click on

7. Click on Continue. The email will then appear

in the inbox of the student’s designated email.

Zend Framework Coding Standard for PHP

2012-06-07T00:45:00.001-07:00

Zend Framework Coding Standard for PHP

Overview

Scope

This document provides guidelines for code formatting and documentation to individuals and teams contributing to Zend Framework. Many developers using Zend Framework have also found these coding standards useful because their code's style remains consistent with all Zend Framework code. It is also worth noting that it requires significant effort to fully specify coding standards.

Note: Sometimes developers consider the establishment of a standard more important than what that standard actually suggests at the most detailed level of design. The guidelines in Zend Framework's coding standards capture practices that have worked well on the Zend Framework project.

Topics covered in Zend Framework's coding standards include:

PHP File Formatting
Naming Conventions
Coding Style
Inline Documentation

Goals

Coding standards are important in any development project, but they are particularly important when many developers are working on the same project. Coding standards help ensure that the code is high quality, has fewer bugs, and can be easily maintained.

PHP File Formatting

General

For files that contain only PHP code, the closing tag ("?>") is never permitted. It is not required by PHP, and omitting it´ prevents the accidental injection of trailing white space into the response.

Note: Important: Inclusion of arbitrary binary data as permitted by __HALT_COMPILER() is prohibited from PHP files in the Zend Framework project or files derived from them. Use of this feature is only permitted for some installation scripts.

Indentation

Indentation should consist of 4 spaces. Tabs are not allowed.

Maximum Line Length

The target line length is 80 characters. That is to say, Zend Framework developers should strive keep each line of their code under 80 characters where possible and practical. However, longer lines are acceptable in some circumstances. The maximum length of any line of PHP code is 120 characters.

Line Termination

Line termination follows the Unix text file convention. Lines must end with a single linefeed (LF) character. Linefeed characters are represented as ordinal 10, or hexadecimal 0x0A.

Note: Do not use carriage returns (CR) as is the convention in Apple OS's (0x0D) or the carriage return - linefeed combination (CRLF) as is standard for the Windows OS (0x0D, 0x0A).

PHP File Formatting

General

Note: Important: Inclusion of arbitrary binary data as permitted by __HALT_COMPILER() is prohibited from PHP files in the Zend Framework project or files derived from them. Use of this feature is only permitted for some installation scripts.

Indentation

Indentation should consist of 4 spaces. Tabs are not allowed.

Maximum Line Length

Line Termination

Line termination follows the Unix text file convention. Lines must end with a single linefeed (LF) character. Linefeed characters are represented as ordinal 10, or hexadecimal 0x0A.

Note: Do not use carriage returns (CR) as is the convention in Apple OS's (0x0D) or the carriage return - linefeed combination (CRLF) as is standard for the Windows OS (0x0D, 0x0A).

Coding Style

PHP Code Demarcation

PHP code must always be delimited by the full-form, standard PHP tags:

<?php
 
?>

Short tags are never allowed. For files containing only PHP code, the closing tag must always be omitted (See General standards).

Strings

String Literals

When a string is literal (contains no variable substitutions), the apostrophe or "single quote" should always be used to demarcate the string:

$a = 'Example String';

String Literals Containing Apostrophes

When a literal string itself contains apostrophes, it is permitted to demarcate the string with quotation marks or "double quotes". This is especially useful for SQL statements:

$sql = "SELECT `id`, `name` from `people` "
     . "WHERE `name`='Fred' OR `name`='Susan'";

This syntax is preferred over escaping apostrophes as it is much easier to read.

Variable Substitution

Variable substitution is permitted using either of these forms:

$greeting = "Hello $name, welcome back!";
 
$greeting = "Hello {$name}, welcome back!";

For consistency, this form is not permitted:

$greeting = "Hello ${name}, welcome back!";

String Concatenation

Strings must be concatenated using the "." operator. A space must always be added before and after the "." operator to improve readability:

$company = 'Zend' . ' ' . 'Technologies';

When concatenating strings with the "." operator, it is encouraged to break the statement into multiple lines to improve readability. In these cases, each successive line should be padded with white space such that the "."; operator is aligned under the "=" operator:

$sql = "SELECT `id`, `name` FROM `people` "
     . "WHERE `name` = 'Susan' "
     . "ORDER BY `name` ASC ";

Arrays

Numerically Indexed Arrays

Negative numbers are not permitted as indices.

An indexed array may start with any non-negative number, however all base indices besides 0 are discouraged.

When declaring indexed arrays with the Array function, a trailing space must be added after each comma delimiter to improve readability:

$sampleArray = array(1, 2, 3, 'Zend', 'Studio');

It is permitted to declare multi-line indexed arrays using the "array" construct. In this case, each successive line must be padded with spaces such that beginning of each line is aligned:

$sampleArray = array(1, 2, 3, 'Zend', 'Studio',
                     $a, $b, $c,
                     56.44, $d, 500);

Alternately, the initial array item may begin on the following line. If so, it should be padded at one indentation level greater than the line containing the array declaration, and all successive lines should have the same indentation; the closing paren should be on a line by itself at the same indentation level as the line containing the array declaration:

$sampleArray = array(
    1, 2, 3, 'Zend', 'Studio',
    $a, $b, $c,
    56.44, $d, 500,
);

When using this latter declaration, we encourage using a trailing comma for the last item in the array; this minimizes the impact of adding new items on successive lines, and helps to ensure no parse errors occur due to a missing comma.

Associative Arrays

When declaring associative arrays with the Array construct, breaking the statement into multiple lines is encouraged. In this case, each successive line must be padded with white space such that both the keys and the values are aligned:

$sampleArray = array('firstKey'  => 'firstValue',
                     'secondKey' => 'secondValue');

$sampleArray = array(
    'firstKey'  => 'firstValue',
    'secondKey' => 'secondValue',
);

Classes

Class Declaration

Classes must be named according to Zend Framework's naming conventions.

The brace should always be written on the line underneath the class name.

Every class must have a documentation block that conforms to the PHPDocumentor standard.

All code in a class must be indented with four spaces.

Only one class is permitted in each PHP file.

Placing additional code in class files is permitted but discouraged. In such files, two blank lines must separate the class from any additional PHP code in the class file.

The following is an example of an acceptable class declaration:

/**
 * Documentation Block Here
 */
class SampleClass
{
    // all contents of class
    // must be indented four spaces
}

Classes that extend other classes or which implement interfaces should declare their dependencies on the same line when possible.

class SampleClass extends FooAbstract implements BarInterface
{
}

If as a result of such declarations, the line length exceeds the maximum line length, break the line before the "extends" and/or "implements" keywords, and pad those lines by one indentation level.

class SampleClass
    extends FooAbstract
    implements BarInterface
{
}

If the class implements multiple interfaces and the declaration exceeds the maximum line length, break after each comma separating the interfaces, and indent the interface names such that they align.

class SampleClass
    implements BarInterface,
               BazInterface
{
}

Class Member Variables

Member variables must be named according to Zend Framework's variable naming conventions.

Any variables declared in a class must be listed at the top of the class, above the declaration of any methods.

The var construct is not permitted. Member variables always declare their visibility by using one of the private, protected, or public modifiers. Giving access to member variables directly by declaring them as public is permitted but discouraged in favor of accessor methods (set & get).

Functions and Methods

Function and Method Declaration

Functions must be named according to Zend Framework's function naming conventions.

Methods inside classes must always declare their visibility by using one of the private, protected, or public modifiers.

As with classes, the brace should always be written on the line underneath the function name. Space between the function name and the opening parenthesis for the arguments is not permitted.

Functions in the global scope are strongly discouraged.

The following is an example of an acceptable function declaration in a class:

/**
 * Documentation Block Here
 */
class Foo
{
    /**
     * Documentation Block Here
     */
    public function bar()
    {
        // all contents of function
        // must be indented four spaces
    }
}

In cases where the argument list exceeds the maximum line length, you may introduce line breaks. Additional arguments to the function or method must be indented one additional level beyond the function or method declaration. A line break should then occur before the closing argument paren, which should then be placed on the same line as the opening brace of the function or method with one space separating the two, and at the same indentation level as the function or method declaration. The following is an example of one such situation:

/**
 * Documentation Block Here
 */
class Foo
{
    /**
     * Documentation Block Here
     */
    public function bar($arg1, $arg2, $arg3,
        $arg4, $arg5, $arg6
    ) {
        // all contents of function
        // must be indented four spaces
    }
}

Note: Pass-by-reference is the only parameter passing mechanism permitted in a method declaration.

/**
 * Documentation Block Here
 */
class Foo
{
    /**
     * Documentation Block Here
     */
    public function bar(&$baz)
    {}
}

Call-time pass-by-reference is strictly prohibited.

The return value must not be enclosed in parentheses. This can hinder readability, in additional to breaking code if a method is later changed to return by reference.

/**
 * Documentation Block Here
 */
class Foo
{
    /**
     * WRONG
     */
    public function bar()
    {
        return($this->bar);
    }
 
    /**
     * RIGHT
     */
    public function bar()
    {
        return $this->bar;
    }
}

Function and Method Usage

Function arguments should be separated by a single trailing space after the comma delimiter. The following is an example of an acceptable invocation of a function that takes three arguments:

threeArguments(1, 2, 3);

Call-time pass-by-reference is strictly prohibited. See the function declarations section for the proper way to pass function arguments by-reference.

In passing arrays as arguments to a function, the function call may include the "array" hint and may be split into multiple lines to improve readability. In such cases, the normal guidelines for writing arrays still apply:

threeArguments(array(1, 2, 3), 2, 3);
 
threeArguments(array(1, 2, 3, 'Zend', 'Studio',
                     $a, $b, $c,
                     56.44, $d, 500), 2, 3);
 
threeArguments(array(
    1, 2, 3, 'Zend', 'Studio',
    $a, $b, $c,
    56.44, $d, 500
), 2, 3);

Control Statements

If/Else/Elseif

Control statements based on the if and elseif constructs must have a single space before the opening parenthesis of the conditional and a single space after the closing parenthesis.

Within the conditional statements between the parentheses, operators must be separated by spaces for readability. Inner parentheses are encouraged to improve logical grouping for larger conditional expressions.

The opening brace is written on the same line as the conditional statement. The closing brace is always written on its own line. Any content within the braces must be indented using four spaces.

if ($a != 2) {
    $a = 2;
}

If the conditional statement causes the line length to exceed the maximum line length and has several clauses, you may break the conditional into multiple lines. In such a case, break the line prior to a logic operator, and pad the line such that it aligns under the first character of the conditional clause. The closing paren in the conditional will then be placed on a line with the opening brace, with one space separating the two, at an indentation level equivalent to the opening control statement.

if (($a == $b)
    && ($b == $c)
    || (Foo::CONST == $d)
) {
    $a = $d;
}

The intention of this latter declaration format is to prevent issues when adding or removing clauses from the conditional during later revisions.

For "if" statements that include "elseif" or "else", the formatting conventions are similar to the "if" construct. The following examples demonstrate proper formatting for "if" statements with "else" and/or "elseif" constructs:

if ($a != 2) {
    $a = 2;
} else {
    $a = 7;
}
 
if ($a != 2) {
    $a = 2;
} elseif ($a == 3) {
    $a = 4;
} else {
    $a = 7;
}
 
if (($a == $b)
    && ($b == $c)
    || (Foo::CONST == $d)
) {
    $a = $d;
} elseif (($a != $b)
          || ($b != $c)
) {
    $a = $c;
} else {
    $a = $b;
}

PHP allows statements to be written without braces in some circumstances. This coding standard makes no differentiation- all "if", "elseif" or "else" statements must use braces.

Switch

Control statements written with the "switch" statement must have a single space before the opening parenthesis of the conditional statement and after the closing parenthesis.

All content within the "switch" statement must be indented using four spaces. Content under each "case" statement must be indented using an additional four spaces.

switch ($numPeople) {
    case 1:
        break;
 
    case 2:
        break;
 
    default:
        break;
}

The construct default should never be omitted from a switch statement.

Note: It is sometimes useful to write a case statement which falls through to the next case by not including a break or return within that case. To distinguish these cases from bugs, any case statement where break or return are omitted should contain a comment indicating that the break was intentionally omitted.

Inline Documentation

Documentation Format

All documentation blocks ("docblocks") must be compatible with the phpDocumentor format. Describing the phpDocumentor format is beyond the scope of this document. For more information, visit: » http://phpdoc.org/

All class files must contain a "file-level" docblock at the top of each file and a "class-level" docblock immediately above each class. Examples of such docblocks can be found below.

Files

Every file that contains PHP code must have a docblock at the top of the file that contains these phpDocumentor tags at a minimum:

/**
 * Short description for file
 *
 * Long description for file (if any)...
 *
 * LICENSE: Some license information
 *
 * @category   Zend
 * @package    Zend_Magic
 * @subpackage Wand
 * @copyright  Copyright (c) 2005-2011 Zend Technologies USA Inc. (http://www.zend.com)
 * @license    http://framework.zend.com/license   BSD License
 * @version    $Id:$
 * @link       http://framework.zend.com/package/PackageName
 * @since      File available since Release 1.5.0
*/

The @category annotation must have a value of "Zend".

The @package annotation must be assigned, and should be equivalent to the component name of the class contained in the file; typically, this will only have two segments, the "Zend" prefix, and the component name.

The @subpackage annotation is optional. If provided, it should be the subcomponent name, minus the class prefix. In the example above, the assumption is that the class in the file is either "Zend_Magic_Wand", or uses that classname as part of its prefix.

Classes

Every class must have a docblock that contains these phpDocumentor tags at a minimum:

/**
 * Short description for class
 *
 * Long description for class (if any)...
 *
 * @category   Zend
 * @package    Zend_Magic
 * @subpackage Wand
 * @copyright  Copyright (c) 2005-2011 Zend Technologies USA Inc. (http://www.zend.com)
 * @license    http://framework.zend.com/license   BSD License
 * @version    Release: @package_version@
 * @link       http://framework.zend.com/package/PackageName
 * @since      Class available since Release 1.5.0
 * @deprecated Class deprecated in Release 2.0.0
 */

The @category annotation must have a value of "Zend".

The @package annotation must be assigned, and should be equivalent to the component to which the class belongs; typically, this will only have two segments, the "Zend" prefix, and the component name.

The @subpackage annotation is optional. If provided, it should be the subcomponent name, minus the class prefix. In the example above, the assumption is that the class described is either "Zend_Magic_Wand", or uses that classname as part of its prefix.

Functions

Every function, including object methods, must have a docblock that contains at a minimum:

A description of the function
All of the arguments
All of the possible return values

It is not necessary to use the "@access" tag because the access level is already known from the "public", "private", or "protected" modifier used to declare the function.

If a function or method may throw an exception, use @throws for all known exception classes:

@throws exceptionclass [description]

Moodle Features List

2012-06-07T00:30:00.001-07:00

Moodle Features List

Moodle is an active and evolving product. This page lists only some of Moodle's many features. We encourage you to click on links to learn more.

Learn abour your server: php variables

2012-06-06T11:21:00.001-07:00

Learn about your server: PHP variables

The server which is hosting your site (we will suppose in this tutorial you have an account with an ISP, so you are not controlling the server) may provide you a lot of useful information. In the next table we have a very simple code which will allow us to get a huge amount of information from the server.

serverex.php

<hr>

<?php
print phpinfo();
?>

When visiting this page you will find a form in the top an a huge amount of information bellow, but in order to get even more information, fill the form and submit it. Then we will look to the response page.

In the response page you will get the PHP version instaled in your server and additional information about the computer and how it has been set up to support .

Additionally, and we will focus on this part of the information provided, in the last part of the response page we will find a section on PHP variables. Depending on the PHP version installed in the server, we may find slightly different data in that table. We do believe printing this response page is very useful, so we recomment so.

We have extract one of the lines from the PHP variables obtained from that section of the response page to show you how to use it.

PHP_SELF

/mydir/serverex.php

So we have a variable and its associated value (in this case the relative path to our page).

Let suppose we want to show in our php page that information. For example in the page "serverex.php" above, we want the action of our form to be entered automatically, so that it will work exactly in the same way with a different file name (file1.php, file2.php, etc.). So we want to get this:

We know PHP_SELF variable will provide us that information, so we will make a small transformation of the variable name from PHP_SELF to $PHP_SELF, and we will used the latter one in our php page as in the example bellow:

pagename.php (you may change the name of the file)

<hr>

Hi <?php print $_GET["name"]; ?>,
I know you are <?php print $_GET["age"]; ?> years old.

So in the response page the form will point back to the same page. Additionally, in this response page we have adding two php codes which will be used to add the information entered in the form within the response page. To learn more about responding to forms you may go to this page.

Depending on the PHP version installed on the server we may used $_GET["name"] or $HTTP_GET_VARS["name"] (in older versions of PHP). Anyway, the result will be the same (just use that one you will find in the list of PHP variables obtained from "askyourserver.php" above).

Selected PHP variables

We have select some PHP variables we consider more likely to be used by a beginner and we have put all them in the script bellow. In the right cell of the table you will find some useful ways to use them.

getphpvariables.php

<form method=post action=<?php print $PHP_SELF; ?>?a=1&b=2&c=3>
Name: <input type=text name=name><br>
Age: <input type=text name=age><br>
<input type=submit value=submit><br>
</form>
Please fill the form and submit it.

<hr>

Lets get some info:
<p>PHP_SELF: <?php print $PHP_SELF; ?>

<p>The value of variable "a" (get method): <?php print $_GET["a"]; ?>
<p>Value of variable "b" (get method): <?php print $_GET["b"]; ?>
<p>Value of variable "c" (get method): <?php print $_GET["c"]; ?>
<p>Value of variable "name" (post method): <?php print $_POST["name"]; ?>
<p>Value of variable "age" (post method): <?php print $_POST["age"]; ?>

<p>Language(s) selected in the browser: <?php print $HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE; ?>

<p>Host: <?php print $HTTP_HOST; ?>
<p>Referer: <?php print $HTTP_REFERER; ?>
<p>Browser of the visitor: <?php print $HTTP_USER_AGENT; ?>
<p>Path to our file: <?php print $PATH_INFO; ?>
<p>Query string: <?php print $QUERY_STRING; ?>
<p>Remote address: <?php print $REMOTE_ADDR; ?>
<p>Remote host: <?php print $REMOTE_HOST; ?>
<p>Name of script: <?php print $SCRIPT_NAME; ?>
<p>Name of server: <?php print $SERVER_NAME; ?>
<p>Local address: <?php print $LOCAL_ADDR; ?>
<p>Path: <?php print $PATH_TRANSLATED; ?>

Example

Check Get and Post
here

Languaje specific response

Example comming soon
Example comming soon
Example comming soon
Example comming soon
Example comming soon
Example comming soon
Example comming soon
Example comming soon
Example comming soon
Example comming soon
Example comming soon

Some of the values you will get from this script will be the same.

The data may be obtained in different ways as for example those ones:
<?php print $QUERY_STRING; ?>
<?php print $_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"]; ?>