Webconsults Europe Consulting in PHP Databases AJAX SEO WEB 20 Webdevelopment - Development

Reset Jenkins Continious Integration Server Password

nospam@example.com (John Behrens) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:57:41 +0200

If you need to reset the password of a Jenkins Continious Integration server. Stop Jenkins: usually /etc/init.d/jenkins stop edit the config.xml usually: /var/lib/jenkins/config.xml Replace true New false Possibly remove the Authorization configuration Restart the Server: usually /etc/init.d/jenkins start Now your Jenkins is absolutely insecure, you can just go to the web interface and edit users password. Do not forget to change back the security configuration, this could be done by a config.xml backup or through the web interface.

KISS: Zend_Captcha_Image in action

nospam@example.com (John Behrens) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:29:25 +0200

I just had to build in a Captcha to a simple form on a small side, i thought of using the Zend_Captcha_ReCaptcha but also saw some disadvantages. - Re Captcha is the most common used captcha, if anybody will build a universal spam bot, ReCaptcha might be first target to implement. - Re Captcha depends on a service so if you implement it your site will also depend on this service Implementing a Zend_Captcha_Image is pretty simple, it is not looking as nice as Re Captcha but also works. here is the code.

$captchaImgDir = 'path/to/were/images/will/be/written';
$captcha = 'path/to/trueTypeFontFile.ttf';

$this->addElement(new Zend_Form_Element_Captcha('captcha', array(
'captcha' => array(
'captcha' => 'Image',
'height' => '40',
'font' => $captchaFont,
'imgDir' =>$captchaImgDir,
'wordLen' => 3,
'timeout' => 300,
),
)));

The Zend_Captcha_Image has no standard view renderer, that is why we use the render function

<?=$this->formLabel('captcha', 'Security Code')?> <?=$this->form->getElement('captcha')->render() ;?>

If there is time, i might implement a ultimate captcha solution, using Randomly choosen Zend_Captcha implementation this means a spambot would also have to implement different solutions.

KISS: Time to KISS

nospam@example.com (John Behrens) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:21:11 +0200

As i did not post anything for one year cause of to less time for really good posts and always wanted to write better quality articles, i know decided to write some KISS articles. In these articles i will post some usefull small things wich might not always be high level enterprise but giving some good ideas.

Shortnote: Disable all Form Fields Zend_Form

nospam@example.com (John Behrens) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:43:12 +0200

It is possible to disable all form fields using Zend Framework Zend_Form class. maybe if the form is already send and you wanna display the data again inside form for optical reasons.

$form = new My_Zend_Form_Class();
foreach ($form->getElements() as $element) {
$element->setAttrib('disabled', true);
$element->setAttrib('readonly',true);
}

This is not a serios possibility to avoid a form beeing send twice a CSRF token would be much more useful.

PHP 5 Reflection access privat methods

nospam@example.com (John Behrens) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:00:33 +0200

There were highly idiologic discussions about if you should test your privates or not with unit testing or not, in my opinion especially during Development with private methods performing for example calculations it could be useful to Unit Test these. At least during development you make sure that these functions already work, and finally it´s better to change accessibility than just to set accessibility lower to make testing possible. Before PHP 5.3.2 it was not possible to change the accessibility but with the new ReflectionMethod it is. But this feature needs to be used with care, it´s made for unit testing and maybe very special other cases wich are not in my mind yet. Using some magic reflection stuff always makes code very hard to read, maybe you think it´s fance but others might get confused a lot.
Using the ReflectionMethod introduced in PHP 5.3.2
ReflectionMethod::SetAccesible
ReflectionMethod Class

PHP Unit Developer Sebastian Bergmann wrote an article about Testing Your Privates
Sebastians Bergmanns Example:

<?php
class FooTest extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
{
public function testPrivateMethod()
{
$method = new ReflectionMethod(
'Foo', 'doSomethingPrivate'
);
$method->setAccessible(TRUE);
$this->assertEquals(
'blah', $method->invoke(new Foo)
);
}
}
?>

Fake Zend Framework isXmlHttpRequest for Unit Testing

nospam@example.com (John Behrens) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:31:52 +0100

To manipulate the result Zend_Controller_Request_Http::isXmlHttpRequest() maybe for testing XML Controllers in PHP Unit you just need to set the HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH value to XMLHttpRequest Zend_Controller_Request_Http::isXmlHttpRequest() does nothing more than checking for this.

$_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']="XMLHttpRequest";

Zend_Controller_Request_Http::isXmlHttpRequest() from Zend Framework Code

public function isXmlHttpRequest()
{
return ($this->getHeader('X_REQUESTED_WITH') == 'XMLHttpRequest');
}

public function getHeader($header)
{
........
$temp = 'HTTP_' . strtoupper(str_replace('-', '_', $header));
if (!empty($_SERVER[$temp])) {
return $_SERVER[$temp];
}

Remove Duplicated Entries from MySQL Table

nospam@example.com (John Behrens) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:13:38 +0100

This is a short tutorial how to remove duplicated entries from MySQL DB Table First idea was just to do a simple DELETE statement on a SubSelect

DELETE FROM user WHERE id IN (SELECT u2.id
FROM user AS u1
JOIN user AS u2 ON u1.name=u2.name
WHERE u1.id < u2.id)

Unfortunatelly this gives back an error message. #1093 - You can't specify target table 'ex_user' for update in FROM clause MySQL Documentation says about that

Error 1093 (ER_UPDATE_TABLE_USED) SQLSTATE = HY000 Message = "You can't specify target table 'x' for update in FROM clause" This error occurs in cases such as the following: UPDATE t1 SET column2 = (SELECT MAX(column1) FROM t1); You can use a subquery for assignment within an UPDATE statement because subqueries are legal in UPDATE and DELETE statements as well as in SELECT statements. However, you cannot use the same table (in this case, table t1) for both the subquery's FROM clause and the update target.

I was searching for a solution without using temporary table but didn´t find one yet.

CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE duplicated_temp(id INT) TYPE=HEAP;

INSERT INTO duplicated_temp SELECT u2.id FROM ex_user AS u1 JOIN user AS u2 ON u1.name=u2.name WHERE u1.id < u2.id;

DELETE FROM user WHERE id IN (SELECT id FROM duplicated_temp WHERE 1);

DROP TABLE duplicated_temp;

Well thats it.

Dynamic Model for Zend Framework

nospam@example.com (John Behrens) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:27:19 +0100

I always liked some kind of auto generated model to access a database. I liked it the way Symfony does or the Zend Framework Tool. But anytime using a generator is also a bit of mess. The actual Zend Framework quickstart example has a 3 files way of implementing a Model, a Model Class, Model Mapper Class and Model DB Table ClassFew, so for one DB Table you always have to create 3 classes which look almost similar, most times you just copy and paste those, and change a few things. So i decided to create an very flexible model class, where you just need to define the properties and nothing more getter and sette methods will be called by magic functions. Even it has export function to an array. You don´t have to create anything but you can create your own functions for getter and setter methods which would override the default ones. In later state it could be possible to add a filter configurable in the model, but for first step i would like to keep it as slim as possible.

class Dynmodel_Model
{
protected $_id;
protected $_created;

public function __construct(array $options = null)
{
if (is_array($options)) {
$this->setOptions($options);
}
}
//
// Magic Call function
// @param <type> $name
// @param <type> $arguments
//@return <type>
//
public function __call($name, $arguments){

if(substr($name,0,3)=="set"){
return $this->__set(substr($name,3),$arguments[0]);
}
if(substr($name,0,3)=="get"){
return $this->__get(substr($name,3));
}
throw new Exception('Method '.$name.' not Supported');
}
//
// Magic Setter Class
// @param <type> $name
// @param <type> $value
//
public function __set($name, $value)
{
$method = 'set' . $name;
$propertyName="_".lcfirst($name);
if(method_exists($this, $method)){
method_exists($this, $method);
}elseif (('mapper' == $name) || !property_exists($this, $propertyName)) {
throw new Exception('Invalid Property '.$propertyName);
}elseif(property_exists($this, $propertyName)){
$this->$propertyName=$value;
}

}
//
// Magic getter class
// @param <type> $name
// @return <type>
//
public function __get($name)
{
$method = 'get' . $name;
$propertyName="_".lcfirst($name);
if(method_exists($this, $method)){
return $this->$method();
}elseif (('mapper' == $name) || !property_exists($this, $propertyName)) {
throw new Exception('Invalid Property '.$propertyName);
}else{
return $this->$propertyName;
}

}

public function setOptions(array $options)
{
$methods = get_class_methods($this);
foreach ($options as $key => $value) {
$method = 'set' . ucfirst($key);
if (in_array($method, $methods)) {
$this->$method($value);
}
}
return $this;
}

//
// Returning the Objects as Array
// @return Array
//
public function toArray(){
$values=array();
foreach(get_object_vars($this) as $pkey => $pvalue){
if(substr($pkey,0,1)=="_"){
$arrkey=substr($pkey,1);
$call="get".ucfirst(substr($arrkey,1));
//calling value through objects get function
$values[$arrkey]=$this->$call();
}
}
return $values;
}

}

The Danymic DBTable and DynamicMapper class are not tested yet, will post theme here later.

Zend Framework PHP based SOAP Server with Java JAX-RPC client

nospam@example.com (John Behrens) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:22:27 +0100

This example shows how to create an Zend Framework based SOAP Server and connect to it by a Java Client. The process itself is really easy but some things ara a bit tricky for example at the status were i created it there were some problems if using WS style for the SOAP Server so i decided to use RPC style. The Server basically allows a user to logon by credentials and gives back a userstatus, the Java Client is connecting through this service and requesting the userstatus. The Soap Server Class

<?php
// orginal code has phpdoc compatible comments with slash star

//
// SoapUserServer Class
//
// @author
//

//
// Description of SoapUserServer
//
// @author johny
//
class Example_SoapUserServer {

//
//
// Returns Api Version
// @return string getApiVersion
//
public function getApiVersion()
{
$apiVersion="0.9.3";
return $apiVersion;
}

//
// getUser
// Returns user Status for a given Username, Password combination
// @param string $username
// @param string $password
// @return string getUserResponse
//
public function getUser($username, $password){

$adapter = new Example_AuthAdapter($username,$password);
$userStatus=false;

//retrive login
$auth = Zend_Auth::getInstance();
$auth->authenticate($adapter);

$acl = new Zend_Acl($auth);
if (!$auth->hasIdentity()) {
//user not valid
$userStatus=false;
}else{
//user okay
//@todo dynamic membership types
$membership=$auth->getIdentity()->getMembership();
if($membership && $membership->getMembershipTypeId()>=1){
$userStatus="premiummember";
}else{
$userStatus="normalmember";
}
}
if($userStatus!=false){
return $userStatus;
}else{
return "wrong credentials";
}
}

}
?>

Zend Controller for the Soap Server

<?php
class SoapController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{

//
// Zend Soap Server Action
// Representing the soap Server
///
public function serverAction(){
if(isset($_GET['wsdl']))
{
$autodiscover = new Zend_Soap_AutoDiscover();
$autodiscover->setBindingStyle(array('style' => 'rpc'));
$autodiscover->setClass('Example_SoapUserServer');
$autodiscover->handle();
exit;
}
// disabling WSDL cache cause we are still in Development
ini_set("soap.wsdl_cache_enabled", "0");
$server = new SoapServer('http://example.com/soap/server?wsdl');
$server->setClass('Example_SoapUserServer');
$server->handle();

$this->_helper->viewRenderer->setNoRender();
$this->_helper->layout->disableLayout();
}

}

?>

Java Client Code With Netbeans a webservice client is really easy to create, right click on the project create new "Web Service Client" More Information: http://netbeans.org/kb/docs/websvc/jax-ws.html JAX RPC Style works better with Zend Framework and PHP. The Stub and Port classes will be Auto generated by Netbeans, so you don´t need to worry about that.

package eu.webconsults.myapp.userauth;

import java.rmi.RemoteException;
import myapp.userauth.Example_SoapUserServerPort_Stub;
import myapp.userauth.Example_SoapUserServerService_Impl;

//
// User Authorization class using Soap Server
// @author johny
//

public class UserAuth {
String username = null;
String password = null;
String usertype = null;
Boolean isAuthorized = false;
Example_SoapUserServerPort_Stub stub;

//
// Authenticating remote
//
// @param username
// @param password
///
public UserAuth(String username, String password)
{
this.username = username;
this.password=password;
this.retrieveRemoteUserStatus();

}
//
// Retriving remote User Status from Stub
// @return
///
private String retrieveRemoteUserStatus(){
try{
this.usertype = this.getStub().getUser(this.username, this.password);
if(!this.usertype.equals("wrong credentials")){
this.isAuthorized=true;
}else{
this.isAuthorized=false;
}
} catch(RemoteException re){
System.out.println("Remote Exception"+re.getMessage());
}
return this.usertype;
}

//
//
// @return
//
private Example_SoapUserServerPort_Stub getStub(){
if(this.stub == null){
this.stub=(Example_SoapUserServerPort_Stub) (new Example_SoapUserServerService_Impl().getExample_SoapUserServerPort());
}
return this.stub;
}

//
// Getting Username
// @return
//
public String getUsername(){
return this.username;
}

//
// Getting Password
// @return
//
public String getPassword(){
return this.password;
}

//
// Returning Usertype
// @return
//
public String getUsertype(){
return this.usertype;
}
}

Sending and Rendering Emails with Zend Framework

nospam@example.com (John Behrens) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 02:18:32 +0200

It took me a little while to figure out to solve a standard problem like sending an template or view script as email, the main problem is the original documentation doesn´t show anything about it, just sending email with text from a string, and if you search on the web, you find mostly the same thing or solutions which were not satisfying me.

//Rendering mail template to string
$mail_view = new Zend_View();
$mail_view = new Zend_View();
/
 This will only work inside the MVC vontroller and
 handle over script path to the email view renderer
/
$mail_view->addScriptPath($this->view->getScriptPaths());
$strMailBody=$mail_view->render('controllername/mail.phtml');

//configuring email
$email_recipient_mail="recipient@example.com";
$email_recipient_name="Recipient Name";
$email_subject="Subject for the Email";
$email_sender_email="sender@example.com";
$email_sender_name="Sender Name";

//sending email with Zend_Mail()
$mail = new Zend_Mail ();

$mail->setFrom ($email_sender_email, $email_sender_email);
$mail->addTo ($email_recipient_mail, $email_recipient_name);
$mail->setSubject($email_subject);
$mail->setBodyText($strMailBody);
$mail->send ();

The mail Template "mail.phtml" could contain text or HTML. Finally i choosed out this method as the best for sending email in Zend Framework Projects, maybe there would be one more better way, if i could put the subject inside the template file, i gonna save that for later.

Eclipse Visual Editor vs Netbeans GUI Designer

nospam@example.com (John Behrens) — Wed, 06 May 2009 03:22:50 +0200

Some days ago i started my first Java project including a GUI, first i began with using eclipse and the beginning was fine, until i came to that point were i had to create the GUI Interface. I didn´t had the intension to define my GUI in writing lines of code, i was mostly searching for something to design a GUI by moving arround some buttons and editor boxes like in Visual Studio or Delphi. After a few tryouts with outdated tutorials i could finally install the Visial Editor for Eclipse by using this tutorial, i noticed that comfortable solution i am searching for, searching arround how to work with it i just found out, the VE is propably not able to do what i tried. So i decided to try out Netbeans, and i were completly satisfied, download and installation were quite easy and the GUI Designer does it´s work almost perfectly, you don´t have to waste your time in configurating layouts just move them arround with drag and drop, almost as good as in Delphi. So what i decided was stop to use Eclipse for that Java stuff and start to use Netbeans and so far Netbeans hits all of my needs exactly, even seems to be more out of one piece than eclipse. Maybe gonna try it out Netbeans for PHP aswell.

Most used Symfony Commands

nospam@example.com (John Behrens) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:35:22 +0100

Here is a list of my most used Symfony command line rool commands Generate a new module php symfony generate:module application modelname Generate Schema from database

php5 symfony propel:build-schema

I always build the Schema from the Database, cause it is easier to Maintain the Database than the Schema file, you can use yoru default Database tool e.q. PhpMyAdmin or MySql Workbench, even there is no chance that sombody implements Database changes wich could be overwritten.

Generate Model

php5 symfony propel:build-model

Generating the Forms

php5 symfony propel:build-forms

Generate Module from Table

php symfony propel:generate-module --non-verbose-templates --with-show frontend post TableCamelCase

Note: the TableNameCamelCase is using Uppercase letter before any underscore e.q. TableNameExample for table_name_example

Calculating Age in Years in PHP

nospam@example.com (John Behrens) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:33:04 +0100

Well calculating age in PHP seems to be not that big thing Date calculation is something wich would be a good topic for Programming for Beginners Lesson 2 It is not that much used cause Databases give a lot of nice date calculating functions like MySQL DateDiff or similar function on other Database. PHP has not had a DateDiff function from home until PHP 5.3, unfortunatelle the PHP Version on server was 5.2.4 so i could not use the PHP DateDiff Function from the new DateTime Functions. Cause i was a bit lazy i thought it might be easy to find a usefull function to calculate Age in PHP but anything i found was a bunch of useless forum discussions and not 100% correct working answers so i wrote an own one.

//my save method to get age
$strBirthdate = "1939-03-01";

$intYearBirth = substr($strBirthdate,0,4);
$intMonthBirth = substr($strBirthdate,5,2);
$intDayBirth = substr($strBirthdate,8,2);

if($intMonthBirth >= date("m") && $intDayBirth >= date("d")){
//last birthday has been this year
$intAge=date("Y") - $intYearBirth;
}else{
//last birthday this year
$intAge=(date("Y") - 1) $intYearBirth ;
}

//most popular method found on the web
$jetzt = mktime(0,0,0,date("m"),date("d"),date("Y"));
$geburtstag = mktime(0,0,0,$intMonthBirth,$intDayBirth,$intYearBirth);
$alter = intval(($jetzt - $geburtstag) / (3600 24 365));
return "method 1 $intAge method 2 $alter";

The problem is 365 days is not the correct number of days for a year. Every 4 years there are 366 cause of the leap year But every 100 years there is no leap year. Like 1900 But every 400 years there is. Like 2000 So for every 4 years of age, this method gets wrong one more day. A more correct calculation would be

//get days have been before this year.
$intSecontsFromYearZero = 3600 24 floor(date("Y", 365.2425));

Could still have some combinations were it returns a wrong result, so the first example is still better. Maybe i gonna past a full datediff function later once, otherwise upgrade to PHP 5.3, so as i will do soon.

Senior PHP Developer free for hire

nospam@example.com (John Behrens) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:25:36 +0200

Yesterday i just completed my last job at a Bank in Munich (München) by introducing a new freelance PHP developer, well this Senior Consultant position had been nice but i am even watching to get back to something more web related than developing financial applications based on PHP and Oracle and a lot of AJAX stuff working together with Sophis Risque. I had an already signed contract with a big recruitment agency for working at a nice online Portal in München but unfortunately they canceled it without giving me a notice on time, so from today i am free to hire again. The job market is not that bad in the moments a lot of people are searching for Webdevelopment Consultants, but i haven have to decide where to go. I worked in Hamburg, München, Amsterdam and London before, and i still would like to go to Rotterdam, den Haag, Utrecht, Stockholm, Copenhagen or maybe somewhere else in the Netherlands, Denmark or Sweden. I think it should be a Position in Webdevelopment again either a nice online project or an interesting web application, cause SEO (Search Engine Optimization) positions are not that well paid. Maybe i could find something with a bit more focus on Symfony Framework or Zend Framework at a nice company, the other option is to just start working on some own web 2.0 projects which i would like to finish. If you know somebody who is searching for a Senior PHP Developer or Consultant in Germany, Netherlands or Skandinavia feel free to contact me.

Good Morning at Symfony Camp 2008

nospam@example.com (John Behrens) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 10:53:24 +0200

Well i finally got some Network access and time to block from symfonycamp 2008 in Holland, camp has a really nice concept they got 3 big dutch army tents, and 2 other tents with chairs for dinner and the sessions. Unfortunatelly the typical dutch rain does not make it that comfortable but it s still okay, only some of my clothes got wet and my car got stucked so far. The Sessions of the first day haven´t been that interesting mostly a lot of general talk about symfony, a bit bashing to other Framworks, CMS, ORM-Layers, so until know the most benefit is more in networking and experience exchange directly with people than what you get offered at the sessions.