Yes, I have a problem with CodeIgniter built-in Form Validation Library, the lack of direct Regular Expression test/rule is a huge turn off for me especially when I need to use Regular Expression to as a rule to verify user input.

There are alternative with the use of “callback” to by creating an additional method inside your Controller. The solution is good if you have a complex filtering but why bother when all you need to do is a simple RegExp verification. Based on my Twitter status:

Based from a reply to the status.

I took the challenge of extending Form Validation Library to add support for Regular Expression test. As a result here MY_Form_validation.php. The changes was minimal but since I need to tweak some of the existing method to allow the special character such as | and [ ] to be use in our Regular Expression the LOC for this modify is quite big.

Now you can add rule such as:

$this->form_validation->set_rules('username', 'Username', 'trim|required|expression:/^([a-zA-Z0-9\.\-\_\|]{1,50})$/|xss_clean');

As you can see, an additional rule has been set with expression:/^([a-zA-Z0-9\.\-\_\|]{1,50})$/. With this new rule you can safely reject request such as below (with proper error message).

Here’s my first (and currently only) daughter Nura Aesha Safia binti Mior Muhammad Zaki.

One of the drawback on CodeIgniter is the Scaffolding Class which is only suitable for testing or development stage. In order to do the same functionality you might find in other PHP Framework for CRUD you have to combine few available libraries in CodeIgniter including Table, Pagination, Form Validation and etc. All the libraries are great but you will end up having to write a long list of function and code to do still CRUD process.

To make the learning process much easier to understand I would actually try to convert CodeIgniter From Scratch: Day 5 – CRUD from Nettuts+ from using available libraries to Ext.CodeIgniter CRUD Library.

Requirements and Basic Informations

• is based and developed on CodeIgniter 1.7.1, it might work with previous version but please do test it out first.
• requires Table, Pagination, Form (Ext.CodeIgniter Library), Form Validation libraries and Form helper.
• callback can be optimized with Template Library for Ext.CodeIgniter.
• your model code can be minimized with ActiveRecord, you may require more works if using raw SQL.

Disclaimer

This library is not as simple as implementing using Scaffolding Library for CodeIgniter but more to minimizing your development time to write code in CodeIgniter.

Getting Started

To use the Template library, you have to checkout a copy of latest Ext.CodeIgniter or grab the following files:

• http://myci.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/system/application/libraries/CRUD.php
• http://myci.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/system/application/libraries/Form.php

KreativeThemes is a collaboration of young creative and talented people in developing and producing WordPress themes (other platforms will join in in the future) of finest quality at affordable prices. It is co-founded by Izuddin Helmi and Amirul Faisyal and backed up by a dedicated team comprises of Ajmal Eylia, Gaddafi, Mohd Huzairy, Nur Fathihah and me.

During the launch, KreativeThemes released Phanatics and Viva-licious as premium themes while Furvious as free themes. Pricing for the themes is based on following structure (do know the price include support for the theme).

You can test drive all themes and purchase or download the one you desired at KreativeThemes official website. More themes will be developed and released in each month so you better be alert and check us out every now and then.

View full photoset 3F Aidilfitri 2009 Open House @ Flickr

Here a good structure for WordPress title instead of using the standard option, most theme I been using usually used this option.

<title><?php wp_title('--',true,'right'); ?> <?php bloginfo('name');?></title>

I prefer a more informative title display to improve SEO for your blog/website.

<?php
function seo_title()
{
    $paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;
    wp_title('&laquo;', true, 'right');

    if ($paged > 1)
    {
        echo ' Page ' . $paged . ' &mdash;';
    }

    echo ' ';
    bloginfo('name');

    if (is_home() && $paged === 1)
    {
        echo ' &mdash; ';
        bloginfo('description');
    }
}
?>
<title><?php seo_title(); ?></title>

Malaysia recently introduce a rounding mechanism for trading to remove the need for 1 cent in the market, but with this new implementation it cause us web developer more task to make it work with our current application.

The Rounding Mechanism is a method whereby the total bill amount (including goods and services subject to tax) is rounded upwards or downwards to the nearest multiple of 5 sen. In this regard, total bill amount that ends in 1, 2, 6 and 7 sen will be rounded down while 3, 4, 8 and 9 sen will be rounded up to the nearest multiple of 5 sen.

For example, a total bill amounting to RM82.01 will be rounded down to RM82.00. If it amounts to RM82.04, it will be rounded up to RM82.05.

Source BNM Rounding Mechanism

Here’s two different version if you ever need it:

PHP

Credit Resipi PHP

function nearest_5cent($val) {
    return round($val*20)/20;
}

JavaScript

var nearest_5cent = function(val) {
	return (Math.round(val*20)/20);
}

Google Chrome Frame is an early-stage open source plug-in that seamlessly brings Google Chrome’s open web technologies and speedy JavaScript engine to Internet Explorer. With Google Chrome Frame, you can:

• Start using open web technologies – like the HTML5 canvas tag – right away, even technologies that aren’t yet supported in Internet Explorer 6, 7, or 8.
• Take advantage of JavaScript performance improvements to make your apps faster and more responsive.

With only 1KB+ It would cut-down development time to debug and make things work in Internet Explorer, no more CSS hack or JavaScript hack to recreate the same feature we would be able to gain from other modern browser. But before I jump into the Google Chrome Frame bandwagon I would like to see some questions answered:

• Does it carry Internet Explorer original User Agent string or does it have it’s own?
  
• Does it still check for CSS Conditional Comments?

This is a random post… visit my flickr photostream for more pictures.

For someone who spent 3 years maintaining my own PHP Framework I find it hard to understand why CodeIgniter bundle in a Template Library. There are actually a few good 3rd party Template Engine which you can find for CodeIgniter but let me share with you a port over Template Library for my so call own PHP Framework.

Requirements and Basic Informations

• is based and developed on CodeIgniter 1.7.1, it might work with previous version but please do test it out first.
• the library is build on top of Loader and Output Library allowing you to fully utilize caching, profiler output etc.
• support Parser Library.

Getting Started

To use the Template library, you have to checkout a copy of latest Ext.CodeIgniter or grab the following files:

• http://myci.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/system/application/libraries/Template.php
• http://myci.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/system/application/config/application.php

Setup Template Folder

You will need to create a folder ./public/styles/default/ at the root folder of your CodeIgniter installation. A terminal command equivalent to this is:

> mkdir -p public/styles/default

Setup Template File

For this example let just make a simple template, by default the Template Class will look for “index.html”.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
    <head>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
        <title>{{PAGE-TITLE}}</title>
        <link href="{{STYLE-URI}}css/all.css" media="all" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
    </head>
    <body>
        <div id="header">
            <h1>{{TITLE}}</h1>
            <div id="navigation">{{NAVIGATION}}</div>
        </div>
        <div id="content">
            {{CONTENT}}
        </div>
        <div id="footer">
            <p>{{FOOTER}}</p>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

Possible Parse Keyword

Initializing the Template Class

he following code loads and initializes the template class based on your configuration settings

$this->load->library('Template');

Configuration

Open system/application/config/application.php and go to line 13 and 24.

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Base Site Name
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Name of your site/application, e.g:
|
|    My First Website
|
*/
$config['site_name'] = 'AdsMalaya';

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Template Option
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Enable you to configure template option
| Default template: <your-site>/public/styles/<theme>/<filename>.html
*/
$config['template']['theme'] = 'default';
$config['template']['filename'] = 'index.html';

Here you can modify the title of your application or site and the folder and filename of the default template.

$this->ui->set_output()

There are 3 possible output type: html (default), text or json (require json_encode to be enabled)

$this->ui->set_output('json');

Only html output will load the template file.

$this->ui->set_title()

$this->ui->set_title('Example Page');

The function will only set page title, while application/site title is only editable through the configuration file.

$this->ui->set_template()

$this->ui->set_template('feedmalaya');

The template engine will use folder ./public/styles/feedmalaya/ instead of the one specified in the configuration file.

$this->ui->set_file()

$this->ui->set_file('site.html');

There are time when you need to have different set of layout but using the in the same theme.

$this->ui->data()

Set output for text or json. Here an example how to use it.

$data = array (
    'success' => TRUE,
    'text' => 'Some text'
);
$this->ui->set_output('json');
$this->ui->data($data);
$this->ui->render();

$this->ui->view(’filename’, $data, $group)

The method is almost identical to $this->load->view with the exception of the third parameter.

$data = array (
'success' => TRUE,
'text' => 'Some text'
);
$this->ui->view('myfile', $data, 'sidebar');
// will render to sidebar
$this->ui->render();

You can embed the view to any of the following group:

• header
• navigation
• content (default)
• sidebar
• footer

$this->ui->append(’some text’, $group);

Append existing template group with some text.

$heading = heading('Hello world', 2);
$this->ui->append($heading);

$this->ui->prepend(’some text’, $group);

Prepend existing template group with some text.

$heading = heading('© CodeIgniter', 2);
$this->ui->prepend($heading, 'footer');

Conclusion

How you can make use of it as I made in my project. If you manage to fine any bug please report it to us, Thank you.

The three types of programmers

Authenticating Users With Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect, 10 Tips for New iPhone Developers and 10 Essential SQL Tips for Developers

I must say one of the main reason why I started to look into ActiveRecord for CodeIgniter was the availability to use database table name prefix.

|    ['dbprefix'] You can add an optional prefix, which will be added
|                 to the table name when using the  Active Record class
$db['default']['dbprefix'] = "feed_";

For example: TABLE feed_item

$this->db->get('item');

Many might not know that you can also use it with normal database query using 'swap_pre'. In ./system/application/config/database.php

|    ['dbprefix'] You can add an optional prefix, which will be added
|                 to the table name when using the  Active Record class
$db['default']['dbprefix'] = "feed_";
$db['default']['swap_pre'] = "{PRE}";

So now you can actually use.

$sql = "SELECT * FROM {PRE}item";
$query = $this->db->query($sql);

Previously if there a need to something like this, I would have definitely create a temporary tool using PHP to automatically loop a SELECT and UPDATE each field inside the loop, for example:

$sql = "SELECT * FROM item";
$query = $this->db->query($sql);
foreach( $query->result_array() as $row ) :
    $this->db->query("UPDATE relationship
        SET rel_date=?
        WHERE (rel_value=? AND rel_type=1)", array(
        $row['item_datetime'],
        $row['item_id']
    ));
endforeach;

This actually can be simplify using only MySQL query such as:

UPDATE relationship r, item i
    SET r.rel_date=i.item_datetime
    WHERE (r.rel_value=i.item_id AND r.rel_type=1)

This is actually just a modification from JavaScript Round To Nearest Number by Talk in Code. Instead of getting the nearest digit, we will actually get the rounding to the next nearest number.

function roundNextNearest(num, acc) {
    if ( acc < 0 ) {
        return Math.round(num*acc)/acc;
    } else {
        var value = Math.round(num/acc)*acc;
        if (value < num) {
            value += acc;
        }
        return value;
}

How to Style an Application Like Facebook, How to Integrate with Facebook Connect and Facebook Developer: JavaScript Client Library

30 Useful PHP Classes and Components, 10 great articles for optimizing MySQL queries and Code Refactoring Guidelines

Flexigrid Implemented in CodeIgniter, 27 Must-Have Starter Kits For Web Designers | Graphics and Multi-site CodeIgniter Set-up

Let’s make the web faster

Some people might find WordPress’s get_option and update_option function helpful over filesystem based configuration where you don’t want user to frequently update the configuration files. Today let me show you how we can utilize the same functionality in CodeIgniter using Option Library.

Requirements & Basic Informations

Before we start, let lay out some fact about Option Library:

• is based and developed on CodeIgniter 1.7.1, it might work with previous version but please do test it out first.
• use CodeIgniter build-in Database Class with ActiveRecord.
• we cache the result on every pageview, Option Library query the table and cached it in an Array which mean Option Library doesn’t overhaul your database.

Getting Started

To use the Option library, you have to checkout a copy of latest Ext.CodeIgniter or grab the following files:

• http://myci.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/system/application/libraries/Option.php
• http://myci.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/system/application/config/application.php

Database

Before you can configure Option Library let first create a new table:

CREATE TABLE `options` (
 `id` INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY ,
 `name` VARCHAR( 255 ) NOT NULL ,
 `value` TEXT NOT NULL
) ENGINE = MYISAM ;

Configuration

Open system/application/config/application.php and go to line 35. You need to enable Option Library (allowing CodeIgniter the fetch from your option table) and identify the table schema based on the table you just created above.

$config['option']['enable'] = TRUE;
$config['option']['table'] = 'options';
$config['option']['attribute'] = 'name';
$config['option']['value'] = 'value';

Using the Option Library

This is just a simple example how you use the library.

class Main extends Controller
{
    function __construct()
    {
        parent::Controller();
        $this->load->library('option');
    }
    function index()
    {
        // to retrieve a value
        echo $this->option->get('copyright');

        // to set a new value
        $this->option->update('copyright', '© 2009 Codenitive.');
    }
}

$this->option->get()

Get a value of any given attribute available from the database table. If there’s no attribute with the given name return FALSE.

$data = $this->option->get('some_invalid_keyword');
// $data return FALSE

$this->option->update()

Set a new value for given attribute, or if it a new attribute create a record inside the database table.

$this->option->update('some_invalid_keyword', 'some valid');

Conclusion

How you can make use of it as I made in my project. If you manage to fine any bug please report it to us, Thank you.