Using PostgreSQL with PHP in Cloud Foundry

Having successfully deployed a PHP application to Cloud Foundry, I needed a PostgreSQL database for persistent storage. I found Lorna Mitchell's Connecting PHP to MySQL on Bluemix helpful and this article expands on that information. I want to create a cloud-based PostgreSQL database and connect it to Laravel's Eloquent in a Cloud Foundry application. This is how to do it. Create the database instance As I'm using Bluemix for my Cloud Foundry hosting, I'm using… continue reading.

Posted on 6 September 2017 in Bluemix, Cloud Foundry, Database, PHP

Deploying a PHP application to Cloud Foundry

I recently had a requirement to deploy a Slim application somewhere. As I already have a Bluemix account, it seemed sensible to deploy it to their Application Runtimes service which is an installation of the Open Source Cloud Foundry project. This turned out to be quite easy, but there are a number of steps involved, so I'm documenting it here. Setup the CLI tools I'm a command line person, so did it all via the… continue reading.

Posted on 30 August 2017 in Bluemix, Cloud Foundry, PHP

Getting started with Serverless PHP

I've been interested in Apache OpenWhisk for a little while now and recently submitted a new feature to add PHP support to the project. As OpenWhisk is a serverless environment, most users do not run their own copy and instead use a commercial provider with IBMs Bluemix available now along with Adobes I/O Runtime and RedHat coming soon. As a result, my contribution, isn't practically useful until it's in production with a provider. Fortunately, and… continue reading.

Posted on 23 August 2017 in Bluemix, OpenWhisk, PHP

Simple way to add a filter to Zend-InputFilter

Using Zend-InputFilter is remarkably easy to use: use Zend\InputFilter\Factory as InputFilterFactory; // set up InputFilter $specification = [ 'my_field' => [ 'required' => false, 'filters' => [ ['name' => 'StringTrim'], ], ], ]; $factory = new InputFilterFactory(); $inputFilter = $factory->createInputFilter($specification); // use InputFilter on some data $data['my_field] = 'Some string'; $inputFilter->setData($data); if ($inputFilter->isValid()) { Return false; } return $inputFilter->getValues(); // my_field is now trimmed How do you add your filter to it though? This is… continue reading.

Posted on 21 June 2017 in PHP, Zend Framework

Slim's route cache file

When you have a lot of routes, that have parameters, consider using the router's cache file to speed up performance. To do this, you set the routerCacheFile setting to a valid file name. The next time the app is run, then the file is created which contains an associative array with data that means that the router doesn't need to recompile the regular expressions that it uses. For example: $config = [ 'settings' => [… continue reading.

Posted on 31 May 2017 in PHP, Slim Framework, Slim Framework 3

Inserting binary data into SQL Server with ZF1 & PHP 7

If you want to insert binary data into SQL Server in Zend Framework 1 then you probably used the trick of setting an array as the parameter's value with the info required by the sqlsrv driver as noted in Some notes on SQL Server blobs with sqlsrv. Essentially you do this; $data['filename'] = 'test.gif'; $data["file_contents"] = array( $binaryData, SQLSRV_PARAM_IN, SQLSRV_PHPTYPE_STREAM(SQLSRV_ENC_BINARY), SQLSRV_SQLTYPE_VARBINARY('max') ); $db->insert($data); Where $db is an instance of Zend_Db_Adapter_Sqlsrv. If you use SQL Server… continue reading.

Posted on 22 May 2017 in PHP, Zend Framework 1

Autocomplete Composer script names on the command line

As I add more and more of my own script targets to my composer.json files, I find that it would be helpful to have tab autocomplete in bash. I asked on Twitter and didn't get an immediate solution and as I had already done something similar for Phing, I rolled up my sleeves and wrote my own. Start by creating a new bash completion file called composer in the bash_completion.d directory. This file needs executable… continue reading.

Posted on 15 May 2017 in Computing, PHP

Using CircleCI for a PHP project

For a new client project, I've decided to use CircleCI to run my tests every time I push to GitHub. This turned out to be quite easy; this is how I did it. I started by creating a config file, .circleci/config.yml containing the following: version: 2 jobs: build: working_directory: /var/www/html docker: – image: php:7.1-apache environment: APP_ENV: test steps: – run: name: Install system packages command: apt-get update && apt-get -y install git – run: name:… continue reading.

Posted on 3 April 2017 in PHP

Stand-alone usage of Zend-InputFilter

Any data that you receive needs to be checked and validated. There are number of ways to do this including PHP's filter_var, but I prefer Zend-InputFilter. This is how to use it as a stand-alone component. Installation Firstly, we install it using Composer: $ composer require zendframework/zend-inputfilter $ composer require zendframework/zend-servicemanager You don't have to have ServiceManager, but it makes working with InputFilter much easier, so it's worth installing. Create the InputFilter The easiest way… continue reading.

Posted on 15 February 2017 in PHP, Slim Framework, Slim Framework 3

Rendering problem details in Slim

As I've already noted, in the project I'm currently building, I'm rendering errors in my Slim Framework API using RFC 7807: Problem Details for HTTP APIs via Larry Garfield's ApiProblem component and rka-content-type-renderer. One place where we need to integrate this approach into Slim is in the error handlers. Let's look at NotFound. To ensure that we return a response in the right format, we need to implement our own NotFound handler: src/App/Handler/NotFound.php: <?php namespace… continue reading.

Posted on 8 February 2017 in PHP, Slim Framework, Slim Framework 3

Category: PHP