Information Technology

Useful PHP Functions

These are three of my favorite PHP functions. 😀

string file_get_contents ( string $filename [, int $flags [, resource $context [, int $offset [, int $maxlen ]]]] ) – Get the contents of a url.

Example:

// following code will display the contents of the web page http://www.example.com
$url = “http://www.example.com”;
$contents = file_get_contents($url);
echo $contents;

bool mail ( string $to , string $subject , string $message [, string $additional_headers [, string $additional_parameters ]] ) – Requires an email server. This functions programatically sends an email based on the given parameters.
Example:

// send an email to someone@somedomain.com
$to=”someone@somedomain.com
$subj = “example”;
$message=”this is an email”;
if(mail($to, $subj, $message)) echo “Email was sent”;
else echo “Email sending failed.”;

int fwrite ( resource $handle , string $string [, int $length ] ) – Write something to a file. Note that the file and it’s parent directory should have permissions granted to a user such as “apache” or “www-data”.

Example:

// open a file called test.txt and if it does not exist, attempt to create it; place the pointer at the begining of the file
$handle = fopen(“test.txt”, “a+”);
$data = “I am programatically written.\n”;
fwrite($handle, $data);
fclose($handle);

I’ll stick with these 3 functions for the meantime. With this though, you can make programs such as:

A simple email interface. 😀
A logging system using just the last function
A proxy browser or something.

5. May 2008 | Categories: Information Technology | Tags: file_get_contents, fopen(), fwrite(), mail(), PHP, PHP functions | 2 Comments

PHP SESSION

This post was originally titled "PHP Developer Essentials" which was what I really wanted to post instead of "PHP Essentials". But as I was at it, I got really bored and I realize, I really just wanted to list all my favorite or let me just say "mostly used" php functions.

But to preserve the efforts, let me just leave what I have already typed here—Creating a session with PHP.

Creating a Session

login.php

<?php
$login_name = $_POST[‘username’];
$login_password = $_POST[‘password’];
if($login_name==’admin’ && $login_password==’@dm!n’){
   session_start();
   session_cache_expire(15);
   $_SESSION[‘user’] = $_POST[‘username’];
   header("Location: ‘home.html’");
}
else{
   die("Authentication Failed");
}
?>

What this simple program does, is get post data from a form that uses the POST method and defined the URL of this code as the form target. The form will look like:

<form action=’login.php’ method=’post’>
Username: <input type=’text’ name=’username’>
Password: <input type=’password’ name=’password’>
<input type=’submit’ value=’Login’>

After retrieving post data, it will validate the user inputs then start a session and store the login data (username) in a session variable called (user). It will then set the window location to the home page using the header() function.

5. May 2008 | Categories: Information Technology, Random and Semi-Worldly | Tags: PHP, PHP Sessions, Sessions | Leave a comment

PHP Essentials

Learn PHP quick! Here are the php elements and functions which I find essential in developing applications with PHP.

Basic Syntax

<?php
echo “hello world”;
?>

The output would be:

hello world

Variables

Variables are represented by a dollar sign ($) and does not require type declaration.

<?php
$a = “this is a string”;
$b = 1;
$c = 2;
$d = $b + $c;
echo $d . ” is an integer” . “<br>”;
echo $a;
?>

The output would be:

3 is an integer

this is a string

Basic Conditions

Here are some of the most basic conditions:

<?php
$a = 1;
$b = 2;
if($a==$b){
echo “a is equal to b” . “<br>”;
}
else if($a!=$b){
echo “a is not equal to b” . “<br>”;
}
if($a>=$b) or $a==1){
echo “a is greater than or equal to b or a is equal to 1”;
}
?>

The output would be:

a is not equal to be
a is greater than or equal to b or a is equal to 1

….Anyway, this is supposed to be a reference, not a tutorial. To really learn php, go to this site!

5. May 2008 | Categories: Information Technology | Tags: PHP Basics, PHP Essentials | Leave a comment

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Useful PHP Functions