PHP & Web Development Blogs

Search Results For: with
Showing 21 to 25 of 62 blog articles.
7761 views · 5 years ago
Iterator in PHP

Every time I see this
$users = [new User(), new User()];

I see a lost opportunity to use Iterator.

Why Iterators?

Collections are an awesome way to organize your previously no-named array. There is a couple of reasons why you should use iterators. One of reason stays for behavior, you can specify exact behavior on standard calls such as next, current, valid etc. Other reason could be that you want to ensure that collection contains an only specific type of an object.

Understand a suffer from using an array of unknown value types.
Very common in the PHP world arrays are used to store all kind of data, in many dimensions in many nested forms. Arrays introduced infinite flexibility to the developer, but because of that, they become very evil.

Example:

- Your function (getUsers) returns an array of User objects.
- Another function (setUsersToActiveState) using getUsers output array and set all users active status to true.
- setUsersToActiveState loop through the array and expect to call a specific method on array item. For example, the method name is getActiveStatus.
- If given array is an array of desired objects which have a callable method getActiveStatus, all fine. But if not exception will be thrown.
- How we can ensure that given array is always an array of objects of a specific type?

public function getUsers(): array
{

return $userArray;
}

public function setUsersToActiveState()
{
$users = $this->getUsers();

foreach ($users as $user) {
if(!$user->getActiveStatus()) {
$user->setActiveStatus(true);
}
}
}

There immediately two problems occurred.
    . One is the problem of type. Our IDE doesn't know what's inside array of $users, so because of that IDE can't suggest us how to use $user element. (I put this comment block above foreach, it works for phpStorm and I guess for some other IDEs)
    . Your colleagues! How they possibly know what's inside array if there is no any hint.
    . Bonus problem, getUsers can return literally any array and there won't be warning in the system.

Solution



class UsersCollection implements \IteratorAggregate
{

private $users = [];

public function getIterator() : UserIterator
{
return new UserIterator($this);
}

public function getUser($position)
{
if (isset($this->users[$position])) {
return $this->users[$position];
}

return null;
}

public function count() : int
{
return count($this->users);
}

public function addUser(User $users)
{
$this->users[] = $users;
}
}

class UserIterator implements \Iterator
{

private $position = 0;


private $userCollection;

public function __construct(UsersCollection $userCollection)
{
$this->userCollection = $userCollection;
}

public function current() : User
{
return $this->userCollection->getUser($this->position);
}

public function next()
{
$this->position++;
}

public function key() : int
{
return $this->position;
}

public function valid() : bool
{
return !is_null($this->userCollection->getUser($this->position));
}

public function rewind()
{
$this->position = 0;
}
}

Tests

Off course there is the tests to ensure that our Collection and Iterator works like a charm. For this example I using syntax for PHPUnit framework.

class UsersCollectionTest extends TestCase
{

public function testUsersCollectionShouldReturnNullForNotExistingUserPosition()
{
$usersCollection = new UsersCollection();

$this->assertEquals(null, $usersCollection->getUser(1));
}


public function testEmptyUsersCollection()
{
$usersCollection = new UsersCollection();

$this->assertEquals(new UserIterator($usersCollection), $usersCollection->getIterator());

$this->assertEquals(0, $usersCollection->count());
}


public function testUsersCollectionWithUserElements()
{
$usersCollection = new UsersCollection();
$usersCollection->addUser($this->getUserMock());
$usersCollection->addUser($this->getUserMock());

$this->assertEquals(new UserIterator($usersCollection), $usersCollection->getIterator());
$this->assertEquals($this->getUserMock(), $usersCollection->getUser(1));
$this->assertEquals(2, $usersCollection->count());
}

private function getUserMock()
{
}
}


class UserIteratorTest extends MockClass
{

public function testCurrent()
{
$iterator = $this->getIterator();
$current = $iterator->current();

$this->assertEquals($this->getUserMock(), $current);
}


public function testNext()
{
$iterator = $this->getIterator();
$iterator->next();

$this->assertEquals(1, $iterator->key());
}


public function testKey()
{
$iterator = $this->getIterator();

$iterator->next();
$iterator->next();

$this->assertEquals(2, $iterator->key());
}


public function testValidIfItemInvalid()
{
$iterator = $this->getIterator();

$iterator->next();
$iterator->next();
$iterator->next();

$this->assertEquals(false, $iterator->valid());
}


public function testValidIfItemIsValid()
{
$iterator = $this->getIterator();

$iterator->next();

$this->assertEquals(true, $iterator->valid());
}


public function testRewind()
{
$iterator = $this->getIterator();

$iterator->rewind();

$this->assertEquals(0, $iterator->key());
}

private function getIterator() : UserIterator
{
return new UserIterator($this->getCollection());
}

private function getCollection() : UsersCollection
{
$userItems[] = $this->getUserMock();
$userItems[] = $this->getUserMock();

$usersCollection = new UsersCollection();

foreach ($userItems as $user) {
$usersCollection->addUser($user);
}

return $usersCollection;
}

private function getUserMock()
{
}
}


Usage


public function getUsers(): UsersCollection
{
$userCollection = new UsersCollection();

foreach ($whatIGetFromDatabase as $user) {
$userCollection->addUser($user);
}
return $userCollection;
}

public fucntion setUsersToActiveState()
{
$users = $this->getUsers();

foreach ($users as $user) {
if(!$user->getActiveStatus()) {
$user->setActiveStatus(true);
}
}
}

As you can see setUsersToActiveState remains the same, we only do not need to specify for our IDE or collagues what type $users variable is.

Extending functionalities

Believe or not you can reuse this two objects and just change names of variables to fit most of the needs. But if you want any more complex functionality, than feel free to add it in iterator or collection.

Example 1


For example, let's say that userCollection accepts only users with age more than 18. Implementation will happen in UsersCollection class in the method addUser.

 public function addUser(User $users)
{
if ($user->getAge() > 18) {
$this->users[] = $users;
}
}

Example 2

You need to add bulk users. Then you can expand your userCollection with additional method addUsers and it might look like this.

public function addUsers(array $users)
{
foreach($users as $user) {
$this->addUser(User $users);
}
}

11996 views · 5 years ago
Five Composer Tips Every PHP Developer Should Know

Composer is the way that that PHP developers manage libraries and their dependencies. Previously, developers mainly stuck to existing frameworks. If you were a Symfony developer, you used Symfony and libraries built around it. You didn’t dare cross the line to Zend Framework. These days however, developers focus less on frameworks, and more on the libraries they need to build the project they are working on. This decoupling of projects from frameworks is largely possible because of Composer and the ecosystem that has built up around it.

Like PHP, Composer is easy to get started in, but complex enough to take time and practice to master. The Composer manual does a great job of getting you up and running quickly, but some of the commands are involved enough so that many developers miss some of their power because they simply don’t understand.

I’ve picked out five commands that every user of Composer should master. In each section I give you a little insight into the command, how it is used, when it is used and why this one is important.

1: Require

Sample:

$ composer require monolog/monolog


Require is the most common command that most developers will use when using Composer. In addition to the vendor/package, you can also specify a version number to load along with modifiers. For instance, if you want version 1.18.0 of monolog specifically and never want the update command to update this, you would use this command.

$ composer require monolog/monolog:1.18.0


This command will not grab the current version of monolog (currently 1.18.2) but will instead install the specific version 1.18.0.

If you always want the most recent version of monolog greater than 1.8.0 you can use the > modifier as shown in this command.

$ composer require monolog/monolog:>1.18.0


If you want the latest in patch in your current version but don’t want any minor updates that may introduce new features, you can specify that using the tilde.

$ composer require monolog/monolog:~1.18.0


The command above will install the latest version of monolog v1.18. Updates will never update beyond the latest 1.18 version.

If you want to stay current on your major version but never want to go above it you can indicate that with the caret.

$ composer require monolog/monolog:^1.18.0


The command above will install the latest version of monolog 1. Updates continue to update beyond 1.18, but will never update to version 2.

There are other options and flags for require, you can find the complete documentation of the command here.

2: Install a package globally

The most common use of Composer is to install and manage a library within a given project. There are however, times when you want to install a given library globally so that all of your projects can use it without you having to specifically require it in each project. Composer is up to the challenge with a modifier to the require command we discussed above, global. The most common use of this is when you are using Composer to manage packages like PHPUnit.

$ composer global require "phpunit/phpunit:^5.3.*"


The command above would install PHPUnit globally. It would also allow it to be updated throughout the 5.0.0 version because we specified ~5.3.* as the version number. You should be careful in installing packages globally. As long as you do not need different versions for different projects you are ok. However, should you start a project and want to use PHPUnit 6.0.0 (when it releases) but PHPUnit 6 breaks backwards compatibility with the PHPUnit 5.* version, you would have trouble. Either you would have to stay with PHPUnit 5 for your new project, or you would have to test all your projects to make sure that your Unit Tests work after upgrading to PHPUnit 6.

Globally installed projects are something to be thought through carefully. When in doubt, install the project locally.

3: Update a single library with Composer

One of the great powers of Composer is that developers can now easily keep their dependencies up-to-date. Not only that, as we discussed in tip #1, each developer can define exactly what “up-to-date” means for them. With this simple command, Composer will check all of your dependencies in a project and download/install the latest applicable versions.

$ composer update


What about those times when you know that a new version of a specific package has released and you want it, but nothing else updated. Composer has you covered here too.

$ composer update monolog/monolog


This command will ignore everything else, and only update the monolog package and it’s dependencies.

It’s great that you can update everything, but there are times when you know that updating one or more of your packages is going to break things in a way that you aren’t ready to deal with. Composer allows you the freedom to cherry-pick the packages that you want to update, and leave the rest for a later time.

4: Don’t install dev dependencies

In a lot of projects I am working on, I want to make sure that the libraries I download and install are working before I start working with them. To this end, many packages will include things like Unit Tests and documentation. This way I can run the unit Tests on my own to validate the package first. This is all fine and good, except when I don’t want them. There are times when I know the package well enough, or have used it enough, to not have to bother with any of that.

Many packages create a distribution package that does not contain tests or docs. (The League of Extraordinary Packages does this by default on all their packages.) If you specify the --prefer-dist flag, Composer will look for a distribution file and use it instead of pulling directly from github. Of course if you want want to make sure you get the full source and all the artifacts, you can use the --prefer-src flag.

5: Optimize your autoload

Regardless of whether you --prefer-dist or --prefer-source, when your package is incorporated into your project with require, it just adds it to the end of your autoloader. This isn’t always the best solution. Therefore Composer gives us the option to optimize the autoloader with the --optimize switch. Optimizing your autoloader converts your entire autoloader into classmaps. Instead of the autoloader having to use file_exists() to locate a file, Composer creates an array of file locations for each class. This can speed up your application by as much as 30%.

$ composer dump-autoload --optimize


The command above can be issued at any time to optimize your autoloader. It’s a good idea to execute this before moving your application into production.

$ composer require monolog/monolog:~1.18.0 -o


You can also use the optimize flag with the require command. Doing this every time you require a new package will keep your autoloader up-to-date. That having said, it’s still a good idea to get in the habit of using the first command as a safety net when you roll to production, just to make sure.

BONUS: Commit your composer.lock

After you have installed your first package with composer, you now have two files in the root of your project, composer.json and composer.lock. Of the two, composer.lock is the most important one. It contains detailed information about every package and version installed. When you issue a composer install in a directory with a composer.lock file, composer will install the exact same packages and versions. Therefore, by pulling a git repo on a production server will replicate the exact same packages in production that were installed in development. Of course the corollary of this is that you never want to commit your vendor/ directory. Since you can recreate it exactly, there is no need to store all of that code in your repo.

It is recommended that also commit your composer.json. When you check out your repo into production and do an install, composer will use the composer.lock instead of the composer.json when present. This means that your production environment is setup exactly like your development environment.
6182 views · 5 years ago
Press Release

To say that we have been hard at work here at Nomad PHP, or that I'm excited about these three announcements would be a tremendous understatement. Over the past several months, behind the scenes, we've been working to bring even more features and benefits to Nomad PHP - these have already included unlimited streaming of all past meetings and access to PHP Architect.

Available today, however, you'll also have access to online, live workshops - as well as soon have the ability to stream select PHP conferences live, and finally to prove the knowledge you have gained through our online certification.

Online, Live Workshops

Like our online meetings, we are excited to announce that available today you can participate in online, live, and interactive workshops. Our first workshop will feature Michael Stowe, author of Undisturbed REST: a guide to Designing the Perfect API as he demonstrates how to build the perfect API using modern technologies and techniques.

Additional workshops will be announced as we continue, with a minimum of one workshop per quarter. These workshops will be part of your Nomad PHP subscription, and will be recorded for later viewing.

Nomad PHP Certification

With the many changes impacting the PHP ecosystem, we're proud to announce the ability to prove your knowledge with our online certification. Each certification is made up numerous, randomly selected questions to be completed within a specific time frame. Depending on the exam it may or may not be proctored, but all exams monitor user activity to ensure compliance.

To pass the exam, a passing grade (specified on each exam) must be completed for each section within the allotted time frame. Failure to complete or pass any section will result in a failing grade for the entire exam.

Upon completion, you will receive a digital certification with verification to post on LinkedIn or your website, as well as having your Nomad PHP updated to show the passed certification.

Initial certification exams will include PHP Developer Level I, PHP Engineer Level II, and API Specialist Level I. The PHP Developer exam will cover core components of PHP, the Engineer will cover a broad spectrum of topics including modern technologies, and the API Specialist will cover REST design and architecture practices.

All three exams will be available by January 31, 2019, and will be included with a Nomad PHP subscription.

Stream Select PHP Conferences Live

One of the primary goals of Nomad PHP is to bring the community together, and allow users all over the country to participate in conference level talks. What better way to do this than to bring community conferences online?

Like our traditional talks, these conferences and select conference sessions will be live-streamed as part of your Nomad PHP subscription, allowing you to participate in real-time with in-person conference attendees.

The first conference to be streamed will be DayCamp4Developers: Beyond Performance on January 18, 2018. Additional conferences to be streamed will be announced shortly.

Community and Corporate Sponsorships

With these new additions to Nomad PHP, now is the perfect time to take advantage of our new Community and Corporate sponsorships.

Your support of Nomad PHP not only makes all the above possible, but allows Nomad PHP to continue to serve and give back the community. We're proud, that despite operating at a loss, to have already contributed over$4,000 to the PHP community in the last 5 months.

To learn more about the sponsorship and community opportunities we have available, please visit our Advertising section.

Other Ways to Support Nomad PHP

Of course, while financial support helps us keep afloat and do more for the community, there are even more, and just as important ways to support Nomad PHP. Please consider linking to Nomad PHP, or sharing the service with your friends.
19349 views · 5 years ago
Generate PDF from HTML in Laravel 5.7

Today, I will share with you how to create a PDF file from HTML blade file in Laravel 5.7. We will be using dompdf package for generating the PDF file.

In the below example, we will install barryvdh/laravel-dompdf using composer package and thereafter we will add new route url with controller. Then we will create a blade file. Then after we have to just run project with serve and we can check the PDF file is for download.

Download Laravel 5.7

Now I am going to explain the step by step from scratch with laravel installation for dompdf. To get started, we need to download fresh Laravel 5.7 application using command, so open our terminal and run the below command in the command prompt:

composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel blog


Install laravel-dompdf Package

Now we will install barryvdh/laravel-dompdf composer package by using the following composer command in ourLlaravel 5.7 application.

composer require barryvdh/laravel-dompdf


Then the package is successfully installed in our application, after that open config/app.php file and we need to add alias and service provider.
config/app.php

'providers' => [
....
Barryvdh\DomPDF\ServiceProvider::class,
],

'aliases' => [
....
'PDF' => Barryvdh\DomPDF\Facade::class,
]


Create Routes

Now we need to create routes for the items listing. so now open our "routes/web.php" file and we need to add following route.
routes/web.php

Route::get('demo-generate-pdf','HomeController@demoGeneratePDF');


Create Controller

Here,we need to create a new controllerHomeController (mostly it will be there, we can skip this step if we don't need to create a controller) that will manage our pdf generation using the generatePDF() method of route.
app/Http/Controllers/HomeController.php

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use PDF;

class HomeController extends Controller
{
public function demoGeneratePDF()
{
$data = ['title' => 'Welcome to My Blog'];
$pdf = PDF::loadView('myPDF', $data);

return $pdf->download('demo.pdf');
}
}


Create Blade File

In the final step, let us create demoPDF.blade.php in the resources/views/demoPDF.blade.php for structure of pdf file and add the following code:
resources/views/demoPDF.blade.php

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Hi</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Welcome to My BLOG - {{ $title }}</h1>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod
tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam,
quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo
consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse
cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non
proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</p>
</body>
</html>


Now run the below command for serve and test it:

php artisan serve

12413 views · 5 years ago
Creating a Tiny Blog Management system in Laravel 5.7

Hey There,
I am expecting you are familiar with PHP. In this post I will be using the Laravel framework to create a small blog system. I am showing here very simple steps to create blogs, If you want this complete code then please message me.
What are major Prequisites for Laravel:
* PHP version >= 5.6
* Composer should be installed in system

Create a project with name tiny_blog with following command

composer create-project laravel/laravel --prefer-dist tiny_blog


enter into the laravel project

cd tiny_blog


create a migration file using following artisan command
<pre>php artisan make:migration create_blog_table</pre>
After this command you will found a new file created in database/migrations folder in your project, Just edit the file having 'create_blog_table' appended in its name

Now replace following code to create table schema with function up(), So now the method will look like following:

public function up()
{
Schema::create('blogs', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->increments('id');
$table->integer('user_id');
$table->string('category');
$table->string('title');
$table->text('description');
$table->timestamps();
});

}


replace following snippet with down method, it will look like following:

public function down()
{
Schema::dropIfExists('blogs');
}


Its time to run the migration file we have created

php artisan migrate



After running,It will create the blogs table in database.Now time to create form and insert data into the table

Laravel itsef provide authentication , use following artisan command :

php artisan make:auth


Now start Larvel:

php artisan serve


it will start the laravel development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000


Now if you run that url the basic default ui will be created and login & register link you can see in Top right position of header

You can register and login now.this feature is provided by authentication module.
Now we need to create a controller for manage blogs with following command:

php artisan make:controller BlogController


will create a file namedBlogController.php in** app/HTTP/controllers** folder location

Now we need to create a Model also, use following command

php artisan make:model Blog


will create a file namedBlog.php in app folder location

Now in Controller we need to create a method for create blogs and available that method in Routes to access it via url. Just editroutes/web.php file and add the following line

Route::get('blog/create','BlogController@createBlog');

/create/blog/ will be url route that land on Blog Controller's createBlog method using get method.

Now before running this route just go to the app/Http/Controllers folder and Edit BlogController.php file and Add the createBlog method in that class as following

public function createBlog()
{
return view('blog.create');
}


This code will try to load the view from/resources/views/blog/create.blade.php

In Laravel blade is a template engine. As we had not created the view file yet, so we need to create a blog folder inside/resources/views/ folder then inside blog folder create a file create.blade.php with following form

@extends('layouts.app')

@section('content')
<div class="container">
@if ($errors->any())
<div class="alert alert-danger">
<ul>
@foreach ($errors->all() as $error)
<li>{{ $error }}</li>
@endforeach
</ul>
</div><br />
@endif
<div class="row">
<form method="post" action="{{url('blog/create')}}">
<div class="form-group">
<input type="hidden" value="{{csrf_token()}}" name="_token" />
<label for="title">Title:</label>
<input type="text" class="form-control" name="title"/>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<label for="title">Category/Tags:</label>
<input type="text" class="form-control" name="category"/>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<label for="description">Description:</label>
<textarea cols="10" rows="10" class="form-control" name="description"></textarea>
</div>
<button type="submit" class="btn btn-primary">Submit</button>
</form>
</div>
</div>
@endsection



Now we need to add a additional route to handle the post request on blog/create route, Just edit routes/web.php file and just add following line in last:

Route::post('blog/create','BlogController@saveBlog'); 


post route to handle the form post on route blog/create


Now create a method name saveBlog to save the user input data in the form
 public function saveBlog(Request $request)
{
$blog = new Blog();

$this->validate($request, [
'title'=>'required',
'category'=>'required',
'description'=> 'required'
]);

$blog->createBlog($request->all());
return redirect('blog/index')->with('success', 'New blog has been created successfully :)'); }


Notice This method is using Blog object that we don't know that where it comes from? , So to make above code working we need to include the model which we created earlier need to include in our controller file So use following code to include it before the class created.

use App\Blog;


Now following line shows that there is a method named createBlog in Model(app/Blog.php), but in actual it is not there:

$blog->createBlog($data);



So go to the file app/Blog.php and Edit it and inside the class add following method:

 public function createBlog($data)
{

$this->user_id = auth()->user()->id;
$this->title = $data['title'];
$this->description = $data['description'];
$this->category = $data['category'];
$this->save();
return 1;
}


Now the creation of blog task has been done , Its time to show the created Entries So just create a route blog/index in routes/web.php

Route::get('blog/index','BlogController@showAllBlogs');


get route blog/index to show all the created blogs by current user


Now just add a method in controller
public function showAllBlogs()
{
$blogs = Blog::where('user_id', auth()->user()->id)->get();

return view('blog.index',compact('blogs'));
}



This method requires to create a index view in blog folder , So create a file named index.blade.php in /resources/views/blog/ folder with following code

@extends('layouts.app')

@section('content')
<div class="container">
@if(\Session::has('success'))
<div class="alert alert-success">
{{\Session::get('success')}}
</div>
@endif
<a type="button" href="{{url('blog/create')}}" class="btn btn-primary">Add New Blog</a>
<br>
<table class="table table-striped">
<thead>
<tr>
<td>ID</td>
<td>Title</td>
<td>Category</td>
<td>Description</td>
<td colspan="2">Action</td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
@foreach($blogs as $blog)
<tr>
<td>{{$blog->id}}</td>
<td>{{$blog->title}}</td>
<td>{{$blog->category}}</td>
<td>{{$blog->description}}</td>
<td>Edit</td>
<td>Delete</td>
</tr>
@endforeach
</tbody>
</table>
<div>
@endsection



Now all code is ready but we need to add 1 line of code to prevent the blog controller without authentication or without login

just add the following constructor method in BlogController class

 public function __construct()
{
$this->middleware('auth');
}


this constructor method will call very first when user will try to access any of BlogController class method, and the middleware will check whether user is logged in then only it will allow to access that method otherwise it will redirect to login page automatically.


After It Run your Code and you will able to create and listing your created blogs/articles. but the Edit and Delete links are not working right now, If you want that also working then please comment here or message me. If we get multiple requests then definitely i will write its part 2 article


Thanks very much for reading this blog, if you have any doubt about it then let me know in comments or by messaging me.

Following is the final code for BlogController.php

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Blog;



class BlogController extends Controller
{
public function __construct()
{
$this->middleware('auth');
}

public function createBlog()
{
return view('blog/create');
}


public function saveBlog(Request $request)
{
$blog = new Blog();

$this->validate($request, [
'title'=>'required',
'category'=>'required',
'description'=> 'required'
]);

$blog->createBlog($request->all());
return redirect('blog/index')->with('success', 'New blog has been created successfully :)');
}

public function showAllBlogs()
{
$blogs = Blog::where('user_id', auth()->user()->id)->get();

return view('blog.index',compact('blogs'));
}

}

SPONSORS

PHP Tutorials and Videos