I tried 100 ways to get the file extension from a complete file path including directories and file name with extension. This one works perfectly. This uses php function pathinfo to get the directory name, filename and its extension for you which is very handy.

I am working on an expressionengine application these days. As I am using the beta version of expression engine until they release the final version, so the source files are encoded with the zend optimizer. Zend optimizer has a limitation that it can’t work with version 5.3 of PHP so far.

I had the latest XAMPP installed on my Windows VISTA machine for a year now but I found out that Zend optimiser isn’t compatible with version of PHP it provided i.e PHP 5.3, so I downloaded the version 1.6.8 of XAMPP from http://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp/files/ which has the older version of PHP i.e 5.2 which is compatible with Zend Optimizer.

Now here is the thing, I downloaded the Zend Optimizer from this link and installed it.  In its installation steps it asks you for two locations which you have to tell it correctly or else it will not work properly.

1. The path to php.ini
2. The path to Apache websrver’s root.

Based on the installation directory of your XAMPP, you can select appropriate directories in these steps. I chose default C:\xampp while installing XAMPP,  so I selected C:\xampp\apache\bin and C:\xampp\apache for the Steps 1 and 2 respectively.

And before that, using XAMPP control panel, I had stopped the Apache so when the configuration changes take place, the next time apache runs, it loads this new php.ini file which is changed by the zend optimizer installation.

Next thing you want to do is, check the php info using phpinfo.php file using the follwing url.

http://localhost/xampp/phpinfo.php

It will open up a page with a bunch of information. Look for the text  Loaded Configuration File and open the same php file using windows explorer.

For me it was

So I opened the php.ini folder and searched for the line where Zend Optimiser properties were mentioned and

In the above code I changed


zend_optimizer.enable_loader = 0


to


zend_optimizer.enable_loader = 1


So its loaded the next time I start the apache.

I have recently been working on PHP RSS reader script that was supposed to do three different things with RSS description text. To make a teaser RSS text, I was asked to develop the functionality in a such a way that text can be cropped in these three ways.

• with defining the number of words.
• with defining the numbers of characters.
• with defining the number of sentences.

Here is a set of functions that helps you crop a text in three different ways. The usage of the function is also mentioned at the end f the script.
<?php

/**
* cropsentence()
*
* @param mixed $str
* @param mixed $noof
* @param integer $mode
// 0 means crop by no of characters // 1 means crop by no of sentences // 2 means crop by number of words
* @param string $appendwith
* @return
*/
function cropsentence($str, $noof, $mode = 0, $appendwith = “…”)
{
if (strlen($str) > $chars) {
if ($mode == 0) { // 0 means crop by no of characters
$str = substr($str, 0, $noof);
} elseif ($mode == 1) { // 1 means crop by no of sentences
$str = getLeadingSentences($str, $noof);
} elseif ($mode == 2) { // 2 means crop by number of words
$str = wordTrim($str, $noof);

} elseif ($mode < 0 || $mode > 2) { // others means do nothing
echo “The current mode is not correct.”;
}
$str = $str . $appendwith;
return $str;
} else {
return $str;
}
}

//getLeadingSentences
//Copyright (c) 2000 Jason R. Pitoniak.  All rights reserved.
//jason@interbrite.com http://www.interbrite.com

//If you find this code useful, find a bug, or have a suggestion,
//please email me.  Feel free to use this code for any purpose.

/**
* getLeadingSentences()
*
* @param mixed $data
* @param mixed $max
* @return
*/
function getLeadingSentences($data, $max)
{
//given string $data, will return the first $max sentences in that string

//in: $data = the string to parse, $max = maximum # of sentences to return
//returns: string containing the first $max sentences
//(If the # of sentences in the string is less than $max,
//then entire string will be returned.)

//a sentence is any charactors except ., !, and ?
//any number of times,  plus one or more .s, ?s, or !s
//and any leading or trailing whitespace:
$re = “^s*[^.?!]+[.?!]+s*”;
$out = “”;
for ($i = 0; $i < $max; $i++) {
if (ereg($re, $data, $match)) {
//if a sentence is found, take it out of $data and add it to $out
$out .= $match[0];
$data = ereg_replace($re, “”, $data);
} else {
$i = $max;
}
}
return $out;
}

/**
* getLeadingWords()
*
* @param mixed $data
* @param mixed $max
* @return
*/
function getLeadingWords($data, $max)
{
//given string $data, will return the first $max sentences in that string

//in: $data = the string to parse, $max = maximum # of sentences to return
//returns: string containing the first $max sentences
//(If the # of sentences in the string is less than $max,
//then entire string will be returned.)

//a sentence is any charactors except ., !, and ?
//any number of times,  plus one or more .s, ?s, or !s
//and any leading or trailing whitespace:
$re = “^s*[^.?!]+[.?!]+s*”;
$out = “”;
for ($i = 0; $i < $max; $i++) {
if (ereg($re, $data, $match)) {
//if a sentence is found, take it out of $data and add it to $out
$out .= $match[0];
$data = ereg_replace($re, “”, $data);
} else {
$i = $max;
}
}
return $out;
}

/**
* wordTrim()
*
* @param mixed $str
* @param mixed $len
* @return
*/
function wordTrim($str, $len)
{
$wordCount = 0;
$charCount = 0;

$length = strlen(strip_tags($str));
for ($i = 0; $i < $length; $i++) {
if ($str[$i] == ‘ ’) {
$wordCount++;
$charCount++;
if ($wordCount == $len)
break;
} else {
$charCount++;
} # end if
} # end for loop

$newstr = substr($str, 0, $charCount);
return $newstr;
} # end function

# Example used for testing purpose

$str2 = “Hello there I work for you. I have been working for other guys, but you are the coolest guy among them.
Also I really like the way you guide me with new technologies and the latest trends. You always tell me to keep working hard!”;
echo cropsentence($str2, 22, 2);

?>

Usage

cropsentence($str, $noof, $mode, $appendwith );

$str: This is the string / text to be cropped

$noof: Number of characters/words/sentences based on the $mode parameter

$mode: Three values of $mode can be defined

1. 0 means crop by no of characters.
2. 1 means crop by no of sentences .
3. 2 means crop by number of words.

$appendwith: This can be any characters like ‘…’ , ‘…more’ etc which will be appended with the cropped text when its returned.

Download:

You can download the script here.

I was recently working on a custom RSS feed reader where the prior most concern of the client was being able to crop the text with respect to the

1. Number of words.
2. Numbers of characters.
3. Number of sentences.

So a very important measure had to be taken. Since the cropping can end up giving us a broken link if its text  is cropped before the </a> tag, our output can end up as a disaster.

So here is a little script that can help you strip off your html tags in such situations.

<?php

$text = "This is a link to <a href='http://www.fahdmurtaza.com/myblog/'>Fahd Murtaza's </a> site!";
echo strip_tags($text, "");

?>

So strip_tags would end up removing anything from the $text. The second parameter of the strip_tags will simply declare any html tags you want to neglect while stripping the text. Off course you will need to deal with them separately in text cropping situations like I had.

Here is one more example.

Hi guys

I am feeling good right now. Have been working on oDesk from Feb 17, 2009. And its good you get paid on hourly basis. I like oDesk the most among freelancing sites I have worked on. Anyhow, I took a few screen shots to show you that I was once featured on home page on oDesk.

Fahd Murtaza

My profile overview on oDesk

My Resume Profile on oDesk

Enhance your blog posts with Yahoo! Shortcuts.

If your content regularly mentions some companies regularly, Yahoo shortcuts can bring up latest financial information related to that company.

Relevant search results would also come up for certain terms like in the image shown UNIX Pipes would pop up a Yahoo shortcut with relevant contextual search results. Some bloggers may find some shortcuts annoying and irrelevant to their blogs content, but some might really find it useful. It all depends on what you blog about.

However the best feature I think is the auto detection of relevant images to your blog post. Images can really enlighten the posts and make them more interesting.

OK here is the code to convert a comma separated string of integer/ digit value to an array

$csvintegers='1,2,3,4,7';
$listvals=split(",",$csvintegers);
?>

You can always compare whether if an integer is present in a string or not. The code to do so is
<? if (in_array(1,$listvals)) { ?>
1 exists<br/>
<? }?>
<? if (in_array(9,$listvals)) { ?>
9 exists<br/>
<? }?>

So the above code after running one after another, will output
1 exists

So basically this code

<? if (in_array(1,$listvals)) { ?>

checks whether 1 is in the array $listvals. $listvals was created by splitting (using PHP split() function ) the comma separated string of integers ($csvintegers) with respect to commas.

I have a view in HWC where I am using Javascript DHTML date picker script to pick the date and insert into test field. By the way HWC is the PHP-MVC (using codeigniter) application I am working on.

Date Picker in dhtml/Javascript

So as you see, the date pickers default format is mm/dd/yyyy,  which is not acceptable by MySQL date/time field as it is, so we need a little processing to make MySQL happy enough to store it

Converting  mm/dd/yyyy to yyyy-mm-dd

$date=split("/",$_POST['date']);
// where the $_POST['date'] is a value posted by form in mm/dd/yy format
$dated=$date[2]."-".$date[0]."-".$date[1];
// The string dated is now in yyyy-mm-dd format
echo $dated;

For example, the date entered through form was 09/02/2009, after processing it will be stored in $dated as 2009-02-09. Pretty kool yeah? Just notice if you have / as I am happy if helps you. You need help with more similar stuff, post a comment.

OK readers, here is a simple method to achieve clean urls with your PHP application developed in CodeIgniter.

Please note that this method is applicable only to applications developed in CodeIgniter. Much of the content has been taken from CodeIgniter wiki but rewritten in my own way.

This article explains how to take away “index.php” from your CI application URLs. However, it does NOT remove the need for Index.php, which is the CI front controller i.e. even though Index.php will not appear in the URL, it still needs to be present at the top level of your site (above the /system/ directory).  To quote the User Guide,

You can easily remove this file by using a .htaccess file with some simple rules.

You need to perform the following steps to get this working:

1. Create a .htaccess file to configure the rewrite engine

2. Set $config[’index_page’] to an empty string

3. Make sure your apache uses the mod_rewrite module

4. Make sure apache is configured to accept needed .htaccess directives

5. Restart apache and test

1. Create your .htaccess file

Create a new file named .htaccess and put it in your web directory

Notes for Windows users:
To create this file you must open Command Prompt and type:
copy con .htaccess [Enter]
[Press CTRL + Z]
A blank .htaccess file will be created. Now you can edit it using Notepad or your favorite text editor and copy the script above.

Note: Most Windows editors will assume that you are attempting to save an .htaccess file as a file with an extension and no filename. The Crimson Editor can be used to create and save .htaccess files and other files that have no filename.

Note: If your site is placed in subfolder specify the path in the “RewriteBase /subfolder/” line.

2. Set $config[’index_page’] to an empty string

Open your

and find the line that assigns $config[’index_page’] a value, usually:

and change it to:

Save the file.

3. Make sure your apache has mod_rewrite activated

This means that the apache must be configured to load the mod_rewrite module (or it might have it compiled-in). For module inclusion, usually you have to look for a line like this in httpd.conf or a file loaded by it (hint: use some quick file search utility to grep files with lines containing ‘rewrite’ string):

If you’re running Apache2 type

in the console and when prompted

to enable mod_rewrite.

On a Windows machine this line might look this way:

If it is commented out (# in front), make sure to uncomment it and save the file. Checking if the corresponding module exists may be a good idea as well (but it usually does).

4. Make sure apache accepts needed .htaccess directives

This means that apache is explicitly configured to allow .htaccess files to override those directives that you use in your .htaccess file from step 1. above.

It seems to be sufficient if you add these two lines to your <Directory> section where you configure the document root for your CI application:

There might be other Options listed, just make sure you have FollowSymLinks as well.

Should you get a 500 Internal Server Error, try the following syntax:

5. Restart apache and test your application

Works? Congratulations!

Doesn’t work? Ehrrr… well, do not give up; equip yourself with patience, double check all steps above and if it still does not work, post on the forum giving all details of your setup.

How does URL rewriting work?

Do what is inside only if Apache has the mod_rewrite feature (by in place compilation, or loaded module).

Activate the URL rewriting engine, if not already done (in main Apache configuration file.

Define the part of the URL that won’t change nor be used for rewriting. In fact, this part will be removed before processing, and prepended after processing. This’s a good way to use subfolder-independent rewrite rules. For example, if your CodeIgniter index.php is placed in a virtual host directory, like /tests/, set RewriteBase to /tests/.

Condition to meet for RewriteRule activation. Here, we test if the requested filename does not exist.

Same as above, but we test for directory existence.

If RewriteCond conditions are met, this rule will be applied. It inserts index.php before the requested URI. The $1 represents the part of string enclosed by parentheses in left expression. The [L] means that this rule is the last one if rule is applied (thus stopping rewriting).

Configuring mod_rewrite in the httpd.conf file

The Apache mod_rewrite docs say

While URL manipulations in per-server context are really fast and efficient, per-directory rewrites are slow and inefficient…

. If you have access to your httpd.conf file, you’ll have better performance if you configure the rewrite rules in there.

You can add something like this to your httpd.conf:

Configuring mod_rewrite and virtual hosting with Apache 2.2

Yeah as always I am one complete day late to know about the new release of wordpress. Its really cool. I just downloaded and installed it. As its famous for its 5 minutes install; it has great new features and a neat and clean interface, I think a hundred times better than the previous version thats 2.3 if I am not wrong (2.3.3), yeah I just checked as I am writing this post on the old platform and I just needed to scroll down this post window (my wordpress blog is an auto install by Fantastico provided by my host in Cpanel)

Anyhow right now I am playing with the latest version (2.5) and its simply awesome.

See the difference. Its just obvious. Its on full page for this blog post.

The Old version of wordpress i.e. 2.3.3

The new cool thing wordpress i.e. 2.5