PHP Snippets

Get how many times a page have been retweeted using PHP

jbj — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 13:24:38 +0000

How many times an url have been retweeted? This is a good question, and the answer is quite easy to get using PHP and the Tweetmeme API. Here is a ready to use function:

function tweetCount($url) {
    $content = file_get_contents("http://api.tweetmeme.com/url_info?url=".$url);
    $element = new SimpleXmlElement($content);
    $retweets = $element->story->url_count;
    if($retweets){
        return $retweets;
    } else {
        return 0;
    }
}

Usage

Nothing complicated. Just use echo to display how many times an url have been retweeted:

echo tweetCount('http://www.phpsnippets.info');

Use PHP’s Tidy extension to validate your (X)HTML markup

jbj — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 10:46:03 +0000

In order to check (x)HTML markup, you can use various tools, including the popular online validator. But what about validating your markup using PHP and its Tidy extension? This is what I’d like to share with you today.

ob_start();

/* Your HTML goes here */

$generated_html = ob_get_clean();
$tidy = tidy_parse_string($generated_html);

if (mb_strlen($tidy->errorBuffer) > 0){
    echo '';
    echo '';
    echo 'HTML Error Log';

    echo 'Errors in your HTML markup';

    echo 'Generated markup';
    echo '' . htmlspecialchars($generated_html) . '';

    echo 'Error log';
    echo '' . htmlspecialchars($tidy->errorBuffer) . '';

    echo '';
} else {
    // HTML is valid -> print it
    echo $generated_html;
}

Using the snippet

Nothing complicated with this code snippet: Paste your html on line 3, save the file and view it throught your web browser. If any markup error has been found by Tidy, they’ll be displayed on the screen.

Finding difference of days between two dates in PHP

jbj — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 14:02:39 +0000

Calculating the difference of days between two dates isn’t always easy, so today I’d like to share an useful snippet which takes two dates and return the difference of days between them. A bit quick and dirty, but it do the job.

function daysDifference($endDate, $beginDate){
   $date_parts1=explode("-", $beginDate);
   $date_parts2=explode("-", $endDate);
   $start_date=gregoriantojd($date_parts1[1], $date_parts1[2], $date_parts1[0]);
   $end_date=gregoriantojd($date_parts2[1], $date_parts2[2], $date_parts2[0]);
   return $end_date - $start_date;
}

Usage

Simply call the function with two dates (format is: YYYY-MM-DD) and it will return the number of days:

echo daysDifference('2010-10-12','2010-10-09');

This snippet can easily be improved, so don’t hesitate to share your version in a comment!

Easily modify url parameters

jbj — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 21:27:31 +0000

Today, here is a very handy function to easily modify, replaces or removes the url query. This can typically be used in paging situations where there are more parameters than the page. The function can detect if there’s currently no query string so it will append ‘?’ instead of & to the actual url.

 $value)
    {
        if($value && !preg_match('/'.$key.'=/', $url))
        {
            $url .= $queryStart.$key.'='.$value;
        }
    }
    return $url;
}
?>

Usage and example

If the current url is http://www.example.com/page.php?p=5&show=list&style=2, and you apply the function with the following parameters:

$url = modify_url(array('p' => 4, 'show' => 'column'));

Your url will become http://www.example.com/page.php?p=4&show=column&style=2

Calculate distances in PHP

jbj — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 07:30:09 +0000

Here is a very handy function, which calculate the distance from a point A to a point B, using latitudes and longitudes. The function can return the distance in miles, kilometers, or nautical miles.

function distance($lat1, $lon1, $lat2, $lon2, $unit) { 

  $theta = $lon1 - $lon2;
  $dist = sin(deg2rad($lat1)) * sin(deg2rad($lat2)) +  cos(deg2rad($lat1)) * cos(deg2rad($lat2)) * cos(deg2rad($theta));
  $dist = acos($dist);
  $dist = rad2deg($dist);
  $miles = $dist * 60 * 1.1515;
  $unit = strtoupper($unit);

  if ($unit == "K") {
    return ($miles * 1.609344);
  } else if ($unit == "N") {
      return ($miles * 0.8684);
    } else {
        return $miles;
      }
}

Usage

Using the function is pretty simple: All you need to do is to call it. Parameters are: from latitude, from longitude, to latitude, to longitude and unit, which can be m for miles, k for kilometers, and n for nautical miles.

//Miles
echo distance(32.9697, -96.80322, 29.46786, -98.53506, "m") . " miles
";

//Kilometers
echo distance(32.9697, -96.80322, 29.46786, -98.53506, "k") . " kilometers
";

//Nautical miles
echo distance(32.9697, -96.80322, 29.46786, -98.53506, "n") . " nautical miles
";

Put the result of phpinfo() in a file

jbj — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:46:12 +0000

The phpinfo() function is very useful to get all kinds of information about the server you’re working on. But what about saving the result of the function in a file instead of displaying it on screen?
The following snippet will do that.

ob_start();
phpinfo();
file_put_contents('filename.txt', ob_get_clean());

Convert html source to full text

jbj — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 05:32:48 +0000

Today, I’d like to share a pretty useful function, which turn a html source into a full text document by removing all html tags and other unneeded code.

function html2txt($document){
     $search = array('@]*?>.*?@si', // Strip out javascript
     '@]*?>.*?@siU', // Strip style tags properly
     '@<[?]php[^>].*?[?]>@si', //scripts php
     '@<[?][^>].*?[?]>@si', //scripts php
     '@<[\/\!]*?[^<>]*?>@si', // Strip out HTML tags
     '@@' // Strip multi-line comments including CDATA
     );$text = preg_replace($search, '', $document);
     return $text;
}

Usage

Simply pass a html source as a parameter to the html2txt() function, and it will return a full text file.

$html_source = file_get_contents('http://www.phpsnippets.info');
$txt = html2txt($html_source);

Detect an AJAX request

jbj — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:34:42 +0000

Sometimes you may want to check if a request has been made by Ajax. The following snippet will easily let you know if a request has been made by Ajax or not.

if(!empty($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']) && strtolower($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']) == 'xmlhttprequest'){
    // Request has been made by Ajax.
}

Cancel magic quotes without changing PHP settings

jbj — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:11:12 +0000

Although magic quotes has been deprecated as of PHP 5.3.0, this feature, which automatically escapes incoming data to the PHP script, is still used on many servers.
If for some reason you can’t (or don’t want to) alter the server PHP configuration, this snippet will cancel magic quotes without changing PHP settings.

if (get_magic_quotes_gpc()) {
    function stripslashes_deep($value) {
        $value = is_array($value) ?
                    array_map('stripslashes_deep', $value) :
                    stripslashes($value);

        return $value;
    }

    $_POST = array_map('stripslashes_deep', $_POST);
 }

parseInt() function in PHP

jbj — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 18:15:05 +0000

Javascript have a useful parseInt() function, which convert a variable in an integer. The following snippet is this function, ported to PHP.

function parseInt($string) {
//	return intval($string);
	if(preg_match('/(\d+)/', $string, $array)) {
		return $array[1];
	} else {
		return 0;
	}
}

Usage

Using the function is definitely easy. Just pass a variable as a parameter and the function will return an integer, as shown in the example below:

echo parseInt("2008"); // Result: 2008
echo parseInt("99.90 dollars"); // Result: 99
echo parseInt("www.w3.org"); // Result: 3
echo parseInt("300 spartiates"); // Result: 300
echo parseInt("block text..."); // Result: 0