The PHP Grind

Steve Hannah’s Blog: Adventures with PHP Compilers

In his laste blog post, Steve Hannah shares some of his “adventures with PHP compilers” that he’s had in the process of finding something to help him protect his work.

I am in a situation where I need to protect some intellectual property in a PHP script. The recommended solution is to use a code obfuscator (or compiler) to encode the script. Currently the landscape leaves much to be desired in this area as far as PHP is concerned.

He talks about Zend Guard, Source Guardian and bcompiler. It’s this last one he focuses on the most, noting that it’s a dynamic PECL extension to be included into PHP and used, but it doesn’t quite seem to work so easily. He finally manages to get something compiled, only to find it doesn’t work when executed anymore.

Conclusion: bcompiler is not ready for primetime yet. Please someone correct me if I’m wrong on this point.

He had higher hopes for SourceGuardian, though, and thankfully, it seemed to pull through. His second post on the topic notes that it “worked flawlessly” when he encoded the file and just as easily when decoding and running the script as well. He highly recommends it to anyone looking to protect their PHP source code.

Continue Reading · Add comment

DevShed: Using Visitor Objects with MySQL Data Sets in PHP 5

DevShed is continuing its series on using Visitor objects in PHP5 with this new tutorial today, a look at uisng them in relation to MySQL and sets of data inside.

So far, implementing visitor objects with PHP is indeed a educational process, which helps to extend even more the boundaries of the vast arena of pattern-based programming. Based on this premise, in the course of this last article, I’ll expand the application of the visitor pattern by developing a slightly more realistic example. It will show you how to use visitors objects to establish a direct relationship between a MySQL processing class and a pagination mechanism.

They start by establishing an interaction between the visitors and the data in the MySQL database, providing the complete code for the class and the creation of the visitor objects. The wrap it up with a look at the creation of a pagination class, linking the display of a “page” of records to each of the visitors of the site.

Continue Reading · Add comment

Greg Beaver’s Blog: No PHP Conference power workshop from me in November

There’s some unfortunate news from Greg Beaver today on his blog:

Some of you may have noticed a power workshop on PEAR advertised on the website of the S&S PHP Conference in Frankfurt this coming November. For personal reasons, I have been forced to pull out, so I’m sorry to say I will not be meeting any of you in Germany. If you’re going, have a great time there!

For more information about the rest of the offerings that will be at this year’s conference, check out their official page, specifically this page for the Power Workshops.

Continue Reading · Add comment

Rob Allen’s Blog: Zend Framework Tutorial

To help even more people get aquaintd with the Zend Framework, Rob Allen has created an impressive guide to getting started with the framework.

The Zend Framework is now at version 0.1.5, so it’s time for me to have a go at writing a getting started guide! This tutorial is intended to give a very basic introduction to using the Zend Framework to write a very basic database driven application.

The guide [pdf] briefly covers what the MVC architecture is before moving into the hows, whys, and whats of the Framework itself. He explains:

• the directory structure,
• bootstrapping,
• setting up your first model/view/controller set,
• styling the site,
• using a database,
• working with POST and GET vars

The sample application manages albums and their information as stored in a database, including add/edit/remove functionality.

Continue Reading · Add comment

Using Visitor Objects with MySQL Data Sets in PHP 5

If you re looking for brand new material to help you expand your background in using design patterns with PHP 5 then hopefully this article will suit your needs. Welcome to the final installment of the series Introducing Visitor Objects in PHP 5. Composed of three chapters this series walks you through the key points of creating and using visitor objects with PHP 5 and teaches you how to use them in the context of real-world applications….

(Advertisement) Rackspace-Managed Servers, Fanatical Support™ Full-Scale Microsoft & Linux Solutions & 0% Network Downtime! Click here now!

Continue Reading · Add comment