Circle.ch: Labels from SVG to PDF with PHP
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On the Circle.ch weblog, there's a new posting about: Designing labels with SVG and convert them to PDF with PHP.
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Latest PHPClasses.org Releases:NodeezMySQLList content of directoryPablosky MySQLRImageManipulatorMySQL PaginationHTTP LocaleMySQL DB Class with  Data Manipulation Class TimeTaMeREasy PHP ValidationFiltreatmentImage to ASCII textKDoubleMetaphoneGeo Conversion
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Joshua Eichorn points out an interesting project in a new post to his blog today - quercus.   I found an interesting project, quercus that compiles PHP to Java Bytecode allowing it to run ontop of the Java Resin Application Server. It has a couple neat features, one being PHP6 compatible unicode support, the other being easy integration between Java and PHP code.   He gave it a shot and notes that the performance seems decent and allows you to compensate for some of the differences in the PHP API it supports and what you're using via a Java class. According to their site:   Quercus is Caucho Technology's 100% Java implementation of PHP 5 released under the Open Source GPL license. Quercus comes with many PHP modules and extensions like PDF, PDO, MySQL, and JSON. Quercus allows for tight integration of Java services with PHP scripts, so using PHP with JMS or Grails is a quick and painless endeavor.   It includes several extensions too, including the JSON library, APC, MySQL and Oracle support, and PDF functionality. Check out their Getting Started guide, documentation, or their wiki for more information.
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Cameron Olthuis wants to share the tools that he finds th emost useful with the entire web, so he's posted them here on his blog.   His list includes libraries from all different technologies, not just PHP. Several are Javascript-related, but it's always good to have a complete toolkit on hand when trying to tackle some of the more difficult things.   Included in his list are things like:  Moo.fx - a Javascript effects library Swat - an open source web application toolkit PEAR - the PHP package repository Mochikit - lightweight Javascript library    Be sure to check out the post and its comments for more great resources!
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Cal Evans has posted a tutorial on the Zend Developer Zone (posted today) about using the PEAR Structures_DataGrid package to create quick and easy data tables.   In this article, I'll be introducing you to the Structures_DataGrid package, showing you how it can be used to display structured data in tabular form. I'll be showing you how to hook it up to various data sources (including a CSV file, an RSS feed and an Excel spreadsheet), and how to format the resulting output so it's as pretty (or as ugly) as you want it to be.   They talk about what you'll need to get started (the different packages for different kinds of data) and some sample code to help you down the path to more attractive tables. There's even a bit touching on some of the more advanced features like exporting to Excel, pagination and data sorting.
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Raphael Stolt, in working on his component for the Zend Framework (based on the PHP_CodeSniffer PEAR package), pulled together all of the information Zend provides about their coding standards into one place.   Before jumping into the development of a Zend Framework coding standard for the PHP_CodeSniffer Pear package, I spent some time revisiting and compiling the available Zend Framework coding standards into a handy one-paged Pdf document.   You can download the file here or, if you want something a bit more "spread out", check out the coding standards on the Zend Framework website.
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Asymptote (http://asymptote.sourceforge.net) is a powerful descriptive vector graphics language for technical drawing, inspired by MetaPost but with an improved C++-like syntax. Asymptote provides for figures the same high-quality level of typesetting that LaTeX does for scientific text.   Problems with loading LaTeX packages and slide presentations were fixed. Non-static variables in every loop iteration are now allocated anew. Formatting under locales with nonperiod decimal separators was fixed, along with logarithmic tick labels near the machine epsilon.  Concatenation of nullpaths was fixed. New path markers were added and the perpendicular symbol in the geometry module was improved. The skeleton routines in the solids module were split to provide finer control.  Routines to facilitate drawing 3d contours were added. Reading portable XDR binary data into arrays works again; functions for reading and writing also in native binary formats were added. The TeX preamble is no longer output in inline mode. The TeX pipe is now aware of a previously generated aux file. Memory leaks were fixed. An inline limit is now imposed on old compilers to speed up compilation. Setlocale warnings are disabled unless debugging is on. A colorspace command for extracting the colorspace of a pen was added. An Asymptote introductory slide presentation was added and a user-written Asymptote tutorial is now cited in the manual.
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In a new post to his blog, Robert Swarthout about a PHP frontend he's been developing for working with Subversion repositories:   The frontend needed to be designed in such a way that each developer could access their working copies and make the full range of actions against them. I decided to also use an AJAX setup so that pages would be quickly loaded and updated by a single toggle of a folder.   A few issues popped up, including tracking edits correctly through the interface. His solution revolved around an Apache MPM that could serve different pages to different users and groups. With this solution in place, the functionality could be built up, a list of which he provides including:  create working copy from repository (svn checkout) svn blame svn delete search files (via a grep/find combination, omitting .svn folders) svn rename
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Latest PHPClasses.org Releases:convertSimple navigationPHP TablesXML ClassSitemap creator for Google, Yahoo and MSNPHPBiDiSimplePaginatorSortable ElementsSnPayPalApiMBTemplate ClassHTTP ServerXCS Parser
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The Builder.com.au website has a new tutorial posted today that looks at the dynamic creation of a web standard (PDF files) inside of a PHP script.   An alternative way of generating PDF files with PHP is using FPDF, a free PHP class containing a number of functions for creating and manipulating PDFs. The key word here is free. You are free to download and use this class or customise it to fit your needs. In addition to being free, it's also simpler to use than PDFlib. The PDFlib needs to be installed as an extension in your PHP package, whereas FPDF can just be included in your PHP script and it's ready to use   They show how to use the FPDF library to make some simple files - setting the title, author, adding images and text, etc. There's even a little bit there at the end about adding new pages to make more complex documents simple.
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Ed Finkler has pointed out a handy resource for those trying to cope with using the UTF-8 support included in several of PHP's functions - this page on the Web Application Component Toolkit wiki.   This page is intended as a reference for functionality PHP provides which can either help with handling UTF-8 or should be regarded as a risk when used in conjunction with UTF-8 encoded strings. Further information can be found on the Internationalization (I18N) and Character Sets / Character Encoding Issues pages.   It talks about the "dangerous" functionality PHP has (issues that the language has in current functions) when using things like the PCRE extension, the string extension, the array methods, handling variables, the XML extensions (DOM and SAX), image manipulation, and URL parsing functionality.
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Derick Rethans has pointed out a "gotcha" that was passed along to him (somewhat incorrectly) about the "name" attribute being deprecated in XHTML 1.0.   Just now somebody on IRC was claiming that the "name" attribute in HTML - the one that is used to give form input fields a name to be used in $_GET and _$POST in PHP is in fact deprecated. [...] But if you read correctly, it's only for the elements: a, applet, form, frame, iframe, img, and map.   For the official information, check out the section of the new spec dealing with this transition.
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Latest PHPClasses.org Releases:Nweb ImageLeast Squares FitCalendar CalculationsParagraphGDColorSimple EnumerationFile Exchange ProtocolFind dateNaf_ValidatorGeneric Form classMulti Threaded Daemon
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Adobe's PDF is a well-established format for transferring pixel-perfect documents. It's not nearly as malleable as plain text, but several CPAN modules make creating, manipulating, and reusing PDFs much easier. Detlef Groth demonstrates how to use PDF::Reuse.
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Reinhold Weber has put together a list of signs (40 in all on his "programming list of shame") that you're a lousy PHP programmer. Here's a sampling:   don't see the need and/or benefits of a good programming IDE like Zend Studio or Eclipse PDT have never used some form of version control like Subclipse don't use a consistent methodology don't use test-driven development don't return content but echo or print it from your functions or classes return HTML, not data, strings, or objects. don't allow intelligent error handling you think reusable software equals/requires your code to be OOP   Now granted, some of them are a bit more high level than others, but if you're not headed towards a lot of these, you might change paths, hop out of that comfort zone and branch out into the community and the language a little bit more.
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From the WebCheatSheet.com site, there's a new tutorial helping you create some dynamic images for your pages, specifically creating a CAPTCHA image, a dynamic bar graph, and using these images on other pages.   They assume you know a little something about the graphics functionality in PHP before you've started because they dive right into the code for the CAPTCHA image. They explain what the code's doing, but if you're not familiar with the PHP GD functions, you might be a little lost. Their string for the image is a randomly generated md5 hash.   The bar graph example is similar and they include a bit more for it - pulling information from a database (MySQL) backend (the results from a poll). They provide all of the code for this example and finish the tutorial off with a brief look at the options for using these types of dynamic images on the other pages in your site.
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Tobias Schlitt has posted about a new component for the eZ components (PHP based) system he develops for - a WebDAV module.   Starting by the end of August we spent almost whole September full-time on designing and implementing this component. The goal was to design a flexible WebDAV server component, which can be used to edit whatever data source on an HTTP server through the WebDAV extension of the protocol, with the full lot of concerns in mind.   Included in the post is an image showing the architecture of the component and a mention that, if you're attending this year's International PHP Conference (2007), you'll be able to see it in action.