So here it is:

• The first thing in installing memcached with wamp is to install the Memcached service. Go to this site and download the Win 32 binary version.
• Inside the download you will find a memcached.exe file. Extract this to C:\memcached
• Now to install the service, open a command window and enter the following

The simple solution is to have Apache work from a different port. Naturally, I wanted IIS to be the one on the different port but the main problem with this is that IIS boots with the operating system. Apache does not, which means that IIS will always get to port 80 before wamp. Damn!

Anyway, here is my solution. In httpd.conf look for the following line:

Listen 80
									

Change it to

Listen 8080
									

Restart Apache and navigate to http://localhost:8080 – you will now see the Wamp start page.

The final thing we need to do is to configure our virtual hosts file. So open it up and change any reference to port 80 to port 8080. For example

NameVirtualHost *:8080

<VirtualHost *:8080>  
    DocumentRoot "c:/wamp/www/"  
    ServerName localhost
</VirtualHost>
									

Hope this helps! Let me know what you think.

PHP however, does not have these command line tools and while there is an implementation of ActiveRecord for PHP, it is not native to PHP and in my opinion, some how just doesn’t feel right. Others may disagree but that is just my opinion. As a result of this, writing objects in PHP is a labour intensive and lets face it; boring task! Get this set that…. so much time wasted on repeating the same task.

Anyway, last weekend I set about writing an object generator that would some how mirror the abilities of the Rails command line. I ended up with this.

All you have to do is install the object_generator folder into your site. Then, navigate to yoursite.local/object_generator, enter the name of what you want your object to be called and the table that it will represent and click submit. A file will then be created in the object_generator folder which you can copy and paste to your desired location. Each object created will extend my standard Object class which contains the following useful methods:

								
// Create a new object instance where $id represents the primary key of a table row
$user = new User( $id );
									
// Edit some attributes
$user->setName( $name );
$user->setAge( $age );
									
// Save the object
$user->save();
									
// Represent the object as an array
$user->toArray();
									
// Delete the object
$user->delete();
									

Enjoy and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask! To download the source code, go to my GitHub repo

Database::fetchAll( $sql ); Database::fetchAssoc( $sql ); Database::query( $sql );
									

Example usage would be as follows:

// You'd probably wanna put this in a constructor somewhere or something like that....
Database::conect();

$sql = "SELECT * FROM `users`";
$result = Database::fetchAssoc( $sql );

// Loop through the results and print each user's first name
foreach( $users as $user ){
    print $user['first_name'];
}

// Like connect, you might want to put this is a destructor...
Database::close();
									

You can download the class from my GitHub repo at https://github.com/mikedhart/Database-Abstraction

Spl data structures are often over looked in PHP. However, as PHP advances into a more object orientated environment, I think it is important that we stand up and take note because structures allow us (as web developers) to use traditional programming data structures in our code.

Here’s how we would initiate a stack:

$stack = new SplStack();
									

A stack is essentially an array and has two primary functions:

$stack->push( $mixed );
$stack->pop();
									

Imagine a pile of books on a desk. You can put a book on top of the pile and take a book from the top of the pile and nothing else (without things getting messy). This is essentially how a stack works. The “push” method will put a metaphorical ”book” on top of the pile and the “pop” method will remove whatever is at the top of the pile. Its that simple.

So, what else can we do with SplStack? The SplStack class has three implementations. Iterator, ArrayAccess and Countable. The Iterator implementation is very important as it allows us to iterate over each element stored in the stack. Por ejemplo:

$stack = new SplStack();

$stack->push( 1 );
$stack->push( 2 );
$stack->push( 3 );

foreach( $stack as $s ){
    echo $stack->pop();
}

// This would output: 321
									

ArrayAccess allows us to do exactly that. Here is an example:

$stack = new SplStack();

$stack[] = 1;
$stack[] = 2;
$stack[] = 3;
									

Finally, Countable simply allows us to count how many elements are stored in the stack:

// Using the above $stack instance
echo $stack->count();

// This would output an integer of 3
									

In the coming posts, I will write more about Spl data structures. Next time, I will focus on the class:  SplQueue.

I know many developers who would settle for a setting the content width fixed to 320px (the width for an iPhone user). However, it is impossible to ignore the rise of android and as there are so many different devices on the market to cater for.

This is how I managed to do it:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width">
									

This will ensure that the UI will always fit the screen. However, there is one slight issue with this. The user will still be able to zoom in on elements. To eradicate this change the above for the following:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,  user-scalable=no">
									

I have always found that Firefox browsers are much less stable than Chrome.

Rather than writing a full post on this, I have decided that I can’t compete with this great post which sums everything up in every possible detail. Happy reading!

Engine yard offers a revolutionary way to develop Rails apps in a cloud based environment and the news that we will soon be able to develop PHP apps in this environment is fantastic.

For anyone who has not yet tried Engine Yard, I would seriously recommend it. Every new user gets 500 free hours of development time so there is no excuse not to try it! Here’s the link.

    /**
     * Validate the new user data
     * 
     * @param array $data
     */
    protected function validate(array $data)
    {
        $emailValidator = new Zend_Validate_EmailAddress();

        if($emailValidator->isValid($data['username']) && $data['password'] == $data['verify_password']){
            return true;
        } else{
            throw new Exception("Please ensure that your passwords match and that you have used a valid email address");
        }
    }
									

This is a simple custom function which I have written to validate a “register user” form. Firstly, we pass in the post data to the function this can be done as follows:

// The Zend way
$data = $this->_request->getPost()

// The traditional way
$data = $_POST;
									

We then create a new instance of the Zend email validator

$emailValidator = new Zend_Validate_EmailAddress();
									

We then run the email address through the validator using a simple if statement and the isValid() method of the validator object.

if($emailValidator->isValid($data['username']) && $data['password'] == $data['verify_password']){
            return true;
        } else{
            throw new Exception("Please ensure that your passwords match and that you have used a valid email address");
        }
									

If all is well, we return true if there is a fault, we throw an Exception. Simple as that.

There are tons of validators for Zend. Some of them are:

• Zend_Validate_Alpha
• Zend_Validate_Alnum
• Zend_Validate_Db_RecordExists
• Zend_Validate_Iban

For a full list, check out the documentation over at http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.validate.set.html