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

Rendering ApiProblem with PSR-7

In the API I'm currently building, I'm rendering errors using RFC 7807: Problem Details for HTTP APIs. As this is a Slim Framework project, it uses PSR-7, so I updated rka-content-type-renderer to support problem. RFC 7807 defines a standard for sending details of an error in an HTTP response message. It supports both XML and JSON formats. From the RFC, an example response is: HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden Content-Type: application/problem+json Content-Language: en { "type": "https://example.com/probs/out-of-credit", "title":… continue reading.

Posted on 1 February 2017 in PHP

Making Slack accessible on macOS

I've written before about how I tend to use my Mac via the keyboard as much as possible to minimise pain in my arm. Possibly the best application on macOS to facilitate this is Shortcat which enables me to point and click at any UI element in any native Mac app. I rely on it a lot and it makes nearly every app I use accessible to me. Recently, Slack updated their desktop app so… continue reading.

Posted on 26 January 2017 in Accessibility, Computing

A note on framework performance

A question came up recently wondering why Slim Framework was around 5 times slower than plain PHP. All frameworks are by definition slower than no-code as there's more going on. i.e. an index.php of: <?php header('Content-Type: application/json'); echo json_encode(['result' => 1]); is going to be much faster than a Slim application with this code: use \Slim\App; include 'vendor/autoload.php'; $config = include 'Config/Container.php'; $app = new App($config); $app->get('/do-it', function($request, $response){ return $response->withJson(['result' => 1]); }); $app->run();… continue reading.

Posted on 24 January 2017 in PHP

Homestead per-project crib sheet

I wanted a drop-dead simple way to try and replicate a problem someone was having on the Slim forums. I couldn't reproduce with php -S which is my go-to for this sort of thing, so I thought I'd try Homestead. I had recently listend to a Voices of the Elephpant episode with Taylor Otwell & Joe Ferguson where Joe mentioned that Homestead worked on a per-project basis too. I didn't know this, so tried it… continue reading.

Posted on 18 January 2017 in PHP

Automatic OCR with Hazel and PDFPen

I have a useful scanner as part of my networked HP printer that will scan directly to a shared directory on my computer. Once there, I want the file to be renamed to the current date and the document OCR'd so that I can search it. To do this, I use Hazel and PDFPen and this is a note to ensure that I can remember to do it again if I ever need to! Firstly,… continue reading.

Posted on 11 January 2017 in Computing

Using Phive to manage PHPUnit

I recently came across the Phive project and have had a play with it. Phive is part of phar.io and is intended to manage development tools such as PHPUnit in preference to using Composer's dev dependencies. The main advantages of Phive are that it uses the phar file of the tool and only keeps one copy of each version rather than downloading a new copy into each project. How it works Phive stores one copy… continue reading.

Posted on 4 January 2017 in Computing

2016 in pictures

Another year has passed which gives me an excuse to to reflect on what's happened. As usual, I look at the photos that I've taken and frame my thoughts around them. January At the very end of January I visited Phoenix, Arizona to see Evan, Priscilla & other friends. I also attended FOSDEM again and spent a tourist day in Brussels. February I was fortunate enough to speak at PHPUK again in February. March The… continue reading.

Posted on 31 December 2016 in Me

SSH keys in macOS Sierra

Now that I've upgraded to macOS 10.12 Sierra, I noticed that SSH required me to enter my passphrase to keys every time I used them. This was a surprise as it's not how 10.11 El Capitan worked. This is how to fix it. Firstly, add your SSH key's passphrase to the keychain using ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/id_rsa (or any other key file). You can now use your SSH key without re-typing the password all the time… continue reading.

Posted on 27 December 2016 in Computing