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Showing 1 to 5 of 5 blog articles.
22996 views · 2 years ago
Is PHP a dying language

It seems like this question gets asked every year, as for some reason the perception surrounding PHP is that it is a language used by hobbyists, or a dying language - a programming language on its way out.

Before we take a look at "is PHP being used less," let's start with some critical points to consider when choosing a programming language to learn/ invest in.

PHP powers ~80% of the web


The first point is how popular PHP is as a program language. Recently in a podcast a debate around PHP was raised, with the question being is it an "enterprise" language. The argument against PHP is that it is not widely adopted by enterprises for enterprise application development - or apps that are traditionally developed in Java or .Net.

The key here is understanding that every tool has its strengths and weaknesses, and there are times where using a compiled language such as Java is a smarter move than using PHP. As always, you want to choose the right tool for the job, and PHP as a programming language excels for web applications. That's why today it powers nearly 80% of the websites on the internet! I want to repeat that number, nearly 80% of websites on the internet!

In the podcast, after the initial argument that PHP was not an enterprise language, I had one question to ask - "can you name one enterprise that doesn't use PHP?" Despite the misconception that PHP is not an enterprise language, nearly every enterprise utilizes PHP in some fashion (many for their website, blog, or internal tools). While PHP may not power the app they offer as a service (although for many companies it does), it powers just as critical of offerings that help drive success for the company.

PHP made Yahoo, Facebook, and Tumblr possible


It's not just personal blogs running on a WordPress install, or small sites running on Drupal (btw, both of these power high traffic, well known web properties), but PHP actually makes development for the web easier and faster. Because it is not a compiled language and is designed to scale, companies are able launch faster, add new features as they go, and grow to enormous scale.

Some of the sites that started with PHP include Yahoo, Facebook, Tumblr, Digg, Mailchimp, and Wikipedia! But it's not just older platforms that started off and have grown to scale with PHP - Etsy, Slack, Baidu, Box, and Canva also got started with PHP! Read why Slack chose PHP

In fact, according to BuiltWith, PHP powers 53.22% of the top 10k websites!

Programming languages don't just disappear


Understanding the prevalence of PHP today, and how often it is used is critical to understanding the longevity of PHP. Despite the radicalized idea, programming languages (and thus programming jobs) do not just disappear overnight. Today you can still find jobs writing code used in mainframes - such as Fortran or Cobol.

As long as companies have applications that use PHP, they'll need someone who knows PHP to maintain the application. And with PHP actively being developed and maintained (PHP 8 having just been released), and PHP powerhouses like WordPress, Drupal, SugarCRM, and others powering websites and apps around the world, it's a safe bet PHP won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

But with the basics out of the way, let's look at how PHP has faired over the years.

PHP usage over the years


While there is no exact measurement that determines how programming languages are ranked, there are several different rankings we can look at to see how a language has evolved over the years, and where it ranks today.

GitHub's most popular programming languages


Every year GitHub releases a report of the most popular languages being used to create repositories on GitHub.com. While this isn't an exact way to quantify a programming language, it does help us understand what languages developers are using and promoting for their applications. It also helps us see how lively the community itself is.

In 2014, PHP was ranked as the 3rd most popular programming language, being beat out only by JavaScript and Java. With the emergence of Typescript, C# moving open source, and increased usage of Python for AI - PHP did drop - and was the 6th most popular programming language on GitHub for 2020.

PHP on GitHub over the years

PHP's ranking on the Tiobe index


Another index for software popularity is the Tiobe index, which bases their ratings off of the number of search engines for programming languages. This index is heavily relied on by companies when making programming and investment decisions, especially in developer marketing.

Like with GitHub, PHP has also seen a decline in the Tiobe index. Ranked 8th last year for all languages, PHP dropped to 9th place, being outranked by the C languages (C, C#, C++), Java, Visual Basic, Python, JavaScript, and Assembly. However, to put the rankings in contrast, PHP is 9th out of the 274 languages Tiobe tracks, and bests SQL, Ruby, Groovy, Go, and Swift.

You can see the latest Tiobe index (updated monthly) at: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

PHP's ranking on BuiltWith


The last model we'll look at is BuiltWith. BuiltWith scans website headers to determine what a website is powered by, and like GitHub and Tiobe provides a ranking of programming language popularity and trends.

Builtwith provides an interesting perspective in that we can see an explosion of sites being built with PHP (nearly tripling from 2013 to 2016) before dropping and normalizing in 2017. From 2017 to present, the number of sites using PHP has remained almost constant.

BuiltWith PHP Usage

This suggests (as with what we've seen with GitHub and Tiobe) that other languages have grown in popularity, such as JavaScript and Node.js. This doesn't mean that PHP is no longer being used or relied or, but rather that there is more competition and that there are other viable options whereas PHP stood alone at times in terms of being the goto language for web development.

Indeed, when we look at how PHP ranks amongst all technologies on BuiltWith, PHP receives the following BuiltWith awards:

• The most popular on the Entire Internet in Frameworks category.

• The most popular in the Top 10k sites in Frameworks category.

• The most popular in the Top 100k sites in Frameworks category.

• The most popular in the Top 1 Million sites in Frameworks category.

Conclusion


PHP's popularity has dropped from its height 10 years ago, however it still remains the most popular programming language powering the web. It's important to remember that every tool has pros and cons, and some of the bad rap PHP gets is when compared to languages designed to accomplish tasks or build programs that PHP was never designed to.

It's also important to remember a lot of early criticism for PHP came from it being a procedural programming language and not encompassing Object Oriented Programming capabilities. These capabilities were added in PHP 4 and with PHP 7 & 8 OOP has become a staple of the PHP language.

PHP is a viable, powerful language used by nearly every enterprise and many businesses large and small. In fact it powers over 50% of the top 10,000 websites on the web! With such large usage, popular tools such as WordPress, and an active community, it is safe to assume that PHP will remain a prominent language for years to come.
13079 views · 5 years ago
Working With Thin Controller And Fat Model Concept In Laravel

Models and controllers are one of the most essential programming handlers in the Laravel MVC framework, and both are used vastly for different functional operations. Models in Laravel are created inside the app folder and are mostly used to interact with the database using Eloquent ORM, while the controllers are located inside the directory App/Http/Controllers.

As a programmer, you should have the knowledge how to keep the balance in between the programming usage of Models and controllers. As which one should be more utilized for allowing functional tasks in applications deployed on any PHP MySQL hosting.


What is the Concept of Thin Controller and FAT Models


The concept of the thin controller and fat model is that we do less work in our controllers and more work in our models. Like we use our controllers to validate our data and then pass it to the models. While in models, we define our actual functional logic and main coding operations of the desired application. This code structuring process is also a very basic concept of MVC and also the differentiating factor from the conventional complex programming which we mistakenly ignore sometimes.


Why FAT Controllers Are Bad For Handling Code


Controllers are always meant to be defined short and concise, and it should only be used for receiving requests and return responses to it. Anything else further should be programmed in Models, which is actually made for main functional operations.

Placing functional logic in controllers can be bad for many reasons for your applications deployed on anyhosting for PHP. As it not only makes code structure long but also makes it complex sometimes. Further placing code in Controllers is also not recommended because if same functionality is needed somewhere else in route, then pulling out the whole code from their becomes difficult and so its reusability in the application.

Though Laravel is an MVC framework while developing on laravel, we sometimes ignore this and write mostly all our code including the extending of App\Model and all our functional logic in controller route methods. What we can do here is we can create a sub model of our parent model. For example, our parent model is User then we can create another sub model of username in CustomerModel if you are using the same User model for all types of users. In this model, we will write all the logic related to user type Customer.

So now let's take an example of my existing blog creating comment system with laravel and vuejs. In that article, you can see I have made so much mess in my controller methods. Mostly, I have written all my comments logic in my methods, so to shorten that let's clean them in this article. Inside app folder, I will create a new file with name CommentModel.php. Inside this file, I will write my whole logic for comment functions. This is my basic file:


<?php
namespace App;

use App\Comment;
use App\CommentVote;
use App\CommentSpam;
use App\User;
use Auth;

class CommentModel
{


}

?>



Right now it contains no function but has the reference of all my models which I required for this model. Let's first add a function namedgetallcomments passing$pageId as a parameter inside it. The function will get all the comments for the given page:


public function getAllComments($pageId)
{
$comments = Comment::where('page_id',$pageId)->get();

$commentsData = [];


foreach ($comments as $key) {
$user = User::find($key->users_id);
$name = $user->name;
$replies = $this->replies($key->id);
$photo = $user->first()->photo_url;
$reply = 0;
$vote = 0;
$voteStatus = 0;
$spam = 0;
if(Auth::user()){
$voteByUser = CommentVote::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();
$spamComment = CommentSpam::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();


if($voteByUser){
$vote = 1;
$voteStatus = $voteByUser->vote;
}

if($spamComment){
$spam = 1;
}
}


if(sizeof($replies) > 0){
$reply = 1;
}

if(!$spam){
array_push($commentsData,[
"name" => $name,
"photo_url" => (string)$photo,
"commentid" => $key->id,
"comment" => $key->comment,
"votes" => $key->votes,
"reply" => $reply,
"votedByUser" =>$vote,
"vote" =>$voteStatus,
"spam" => $spam,
"replies" => $replies,
"date" => $key->created_at->toDateTimeString()
]);
}


}
$collection = collect($commentsData);
return $collection->sortBy('votes');
}



Now I will create another function namedreplies which takes$commentId as a parameter. The function is more or less programmed in the same manner as the upper function get all comments.


protected function replies($commentId)
{
$comments = Comment::where('reply_id',$commentId)->get();
$replies = [];



foreach ($comments as $key) {
$user = User::find($key->users_id);
$name = $user->name;
$photo = $user->first()->photo_url;

$vote = 0;
$voteStatus = 0;
$spam = 0;


if(Auth::user()){
$voteByUser = CommentVote::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();
$spamComment = CommentSpam::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();

if($voteByUser){
$vote = 1;
$voteStatus = $voteByUser->vote;
}

if($spamComment){
$spam = 1;
}
}
if(!$spam){


array_push($replies,[
"name" => $name,
"photo_url" => $photo,
"commentid" => $key->id,
"comment" => $key->comment,
"votes" => $key->votes,
"votedByUser" => $vote,
"vote" => $voteStatus,
"spam" => $spam,
"date" => $key->created_at->toDateTimeString()
]);
}




}


$collection = collect($replies);
return $collection->sortBy('votes');
}



Now lets create a functioncreate comment which passes$array as a parameter in it:


public function createComment($arary)
{
$comment = Comment::create($array);


if($comment)
return [ "status" => "true","commentId" => $comment->id ];
else
return [ "status" => "false" ];
}



Similarly, Now I will create all the function for comment in myCommentModel, so that all the functions gets accumulated in one model.


<?php
namespace App;

use App\Comment;
use App\CommentSpam;
use App\CommentVote;
use App\User;
use Auth;

class CommentModel
{
public function getAllComments($pageId)
{
$comments = Comment::where('page_id', $pageId)->get();

$commentsData = [];

foreach ($comments as $key) {
$user = User::find($key->users_id);
$name = $user->name;
$replies = $this->replies($key->id);
$photo = $user->first()->photo_url;
$reply = 0;
$vote = 0;
$voteStatus = 0;
$spam = 0;
if (Auth::user()) {
$voteByUser = CommentVote::where('comment_id', $key->id)->where('user_id', Auth::user()->id)->first();
$spamComment = CommentSpam::where('comment_id', $key->id)->where('user_id', Auth::user()->id)->first();

if ($voteByUser) {
$vote = 1;
$voteStatus = $voteByUser->vote;
}

if ($spamComment) {
$spam = 1;
}
}

if (sizeof($replies) > 0) {
$reply = 1;
}

if (!$spam) {
array_push($commentsData, [
"name" => $name,
"photo_url" => (string) $photo,
"commentid" => $key->id,
"comment" => $key->comment,
"votes" => $key->votes,
"reply" => $reply,
"votedByUser" => $vote,
"vote" => $voteStatus,
"spam" => $spam,
"replies" => $replies,
"date" => $key->created_at->toDateTimeString(),
]);
}

}
$collection = collect($commentsData);
return $collection->sortBy('votes');
}

protected function replies($commentId)
{
$comments = Comment::where('reply_id', $commentId)->get();
$replies = [];

foreach ($comments as $key) {
$user = User::find($key->users_id);
$name = $user->name;
$photo = $user->first()->photo_url;

$vote = 0;
$voteStatus = 0;
$spam = 0;

if (Auth::user()) {
$voteByUser = CommentVote::where('comment_id', $key->id)->where('user_id', Auth::user()->id)->first();
$spamComment = CommentSpam::where('comment_id', $key->id)->where('user_id', Auth::user()->id)->first();

if ($voteByUser) {
$vote = 1;
$voteStatus = $voteByUser->vote;
}

if ($spamComment) {
$spam = 1;
}
}
if (!$spam) {

array_push($replies, [
"name" => $name,
"photo_url" => $photo,
"commentid" => $key->id,
"comment" => $key->comment,
"votes" => $key->votes,
"votedByUser" => $vote,
"vote" => $voteStatus,
"spam" => $spam,
"date" => $key->created_at->toDateTimeString(),
]);
}

}

$collection = collect($replies);
return $collection->sortBy('votes');
}

public function createComment($arary)
{
$comment = Comment::create($array);

if ($comment) {
return ["status" => "true", "commentId" => $comment->id];
} else {
return ["status" => "false"];
}

}

public function voteComment($commentId, $array)
{
$comments = Comment::find($commentId);
$data = [
"comment_id" => $commentId,
'vote' => $array->vote,
'user_id' => $array->users_id,
];

if ($array->vote == "up") {
$comment = $comments->first();
$vote = $comment->votes;
$vote++;
$comments->votes = $vote;
$comments->save();
}

if ($array->vote == "down") {
$comment = $comments->first();
$vote = $comment->votes;
$vote--;
$comments->votes = $vote;
$comments->save();
}

if (CommentVote::create($data)) {
return true;
}

}

public function spamComment($commentId, $array)
{
$comments = Comment::find($commentId);

$comment = $comments->first();
$spam = $comment->spam;
$spam++;
$comments->spam = $spam;
$comments->save();

$data = [
"comment_id" => $commentId,
'user_id' => $array->users_id,
];

if (CommentSpam::create($data)) {
return true;
}

}
}
?>



Now we have all our required methods inCommentModel. So now let's clean upCommentController which is currently bit complex and lengthy in code structure. As right nowCommentController look like this:


<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Http\Requests;
use App\Comment;
use App\CommentVote;
use App\CommentSpam;
use App\User;
use Auth;

class CommentController extends Controller
{



public function index($pageId)
{
$comments = Comment::where('page_id',$pageId)->get();

$commentsData = [];




foreach ($comments as $key) {
$user = User::find($key->users_id);
$name = $user->name;
$replies = $this->replies($key->id);
$photo = $user->first()->photo_url;
$reply = 0;
$vote = 0;
$voteStatus = 0;
$spam = 0;
if(Auth::user()){
$voteByUser = CommentVote::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();
$spamComment = CommentSpam::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();


if($voteByUser){
$vote = 1;
$voteStatus = $voteByUser->vote;
}

if($spamComment){
$spam = 1;
}
}


if(sizeof($replies) > 0){
$reply = 1;
}

if(!$spam){
array_push($commentsData,[
"name" => $name,
"photo_url" => (string)$photo,
"commentid" => $key->id,
"comment" => $key->comment,
"votes" => $key->votes,
"reply" => $reply,
"votedByUser" =>$vote,
"vote" =>$voteStatus,
"spam" => $spam,
"replies" => $replies,
"date" => $key->created_at->toDateTimeString()
]);
}


}
$collection = collect($commentsData);
return $collection->sortBy('votes');
}

protected function replies($commentId)
{
$comments = Comment::where('reply_id',$commentId)->get();
$replies = [];



foreach ($comments as $key) {
$user = User::find($key->users_id);
$name = $user->name;
$photo = $user->first()->photo_url;

$vote = 0;
$voteStatus = 0;
$spam = 0;


if(Auth::user()){
$voteByUser = CommentVote::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();
$spamComment = CommentSpam::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();

if($voteByUser){
$vote = 1;
$voteStatus = $voteByUser->vote;
}

if($spamComment){
$spam = 1;
}
}
if(!$spam){


array_push($replies,[
"name" => $name,
"photo_url" => $photo,
"commentid" => $key->id,
"comment" => $key->comment,
"votes" => $key->votes,
"votedByUser" => $vote,
"vote" => $voteStatus,
"spam" => $spam,
"date" => $key->created_at->toDateTimeString()
]);
}




}


$collection = collect($replies);
return $collection->sortBy('votes');
}


public function store(Request $request)
{
$this->validate($request, [
'comment' => 'required',
'reply_id' => 'filled',
'page_id' => 'filled',
'users_id' => 'required',
]);
$comment = Comment::create($request->all());
if($comment)
return [ "status" => "true","commentId" => $comment->id ];
}


public function update(Request $request, $commentId,$type)
{
if($type == "vote"){


$this->validate($request, [
'vote' => 'required',
'users_id' => 'required',
]);

$comments = Comment::find($commentId);
$data = [
"comment_id" => $commentId,
'vote' => $request->vote,
'user_id' => $request->users_id,
];

if($request->vote == "up"){
$comment = $comments->first();
$vote = $comment->votes;
$vote++;
$comments->votes = $vote;
$comments->save();
}

if($request->vote == "down"){
$comment = $comments->first();
$vote = $comment->votes;
$vote--;
$comments->votes = $vote;
$comments->save();
}

if(CommentVote::create($data))
return "true";
}

if($type == "spam"){


$this->validate($request, [
'users_id' => 'required',
]);

$comments = Comment::find($commentId);


$comment = $comments->first();
$spam = $comment->spam;
$spam++;
$comments->spam = $spam;
$comments->save();

$data = [
"comment_id" => $commentId,
'user_id' => $request->users_id,
];

if(CommentSpam::create($data))
return "true";
}
}


public function destroy($id)
{
}
}?>



After cleaning up the controller it will look much simpler and easy to understand like this:


<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\CommentModel;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class CommentController extends Controller
{

private $commentModel = null;
private function __construct()
{
$this->commentModel = new CommentModel();
}


public function index($pageId)
{
return $this->commentModel->getAllComments($pageId);
}


public function store(Request $request)
{
$this->validate($request, [
'comment' => 'required',
'reply_id' => 'filled',
'page_id' => 'filled',
'users_id' => 'required',
]);
return $this->commentModel->createComment($request->all());
}


public function update(Request $request, $commentId, $type)
{
if ($type == "vote") {

$this->validate($request, [
'vote' => 'required',
'users_id' => 'required',
]);

return $this->commentModel->voteComment($commentId, $request->all());
}

if ($type == "spam") {

$this->validate($request, [
'users_id' => 'required',
]);

return $this->commentModel->spamComment($commentId, $request->all());
}
}

}
?>




Wrap Up!


So Isn't it looking much cleaner and simpler to understand now? This is what actually a thin controller and fat model looks like. We have all our logic related to Comment system programmed in ourCommentModel and our controller is now just used to transfer data from the user to our model and returning the response which is coming from our model.

So this is how the structuring of the thin controller and fat model is made. Give your thoughts in the comments below.
12877 views · 4 years ago
Why Cloudways is the Perfect Managed Hosting for PHP Applications

The following is a sponsored blogpost by Cloudways


Developing an application is not the sole thing you should bank on. You must strive to find the best hosting solution to deploy that application also. The application’s speed is dependent on the hosting provider, that is why I always advise you to go for the best hosting solution to get the ultimate app performance.

Now a days, it is a big challenge to choose any web hosting, as each hosting has its own pros and cons which you must know, before considering it finally for the deployment. I don’t recommend shared hosting for PHP/Laravel based applications, because you always get lot of server hassles like downtime, hacking, 500 errors, lousy support and other problems that are part and parcel of shared hosting.

For PHP applications, you must focus on more technical aspects like caching, configs, databases, etc. because these are essential performance points for any vanilla or framework-based PHP application. Additionally, if the app focuses on user engagement (for instance, ecommerce store), the hosting solution should be robust enough to handle spikes in traffic.

Here, I would like to introduce Cloudways PHP server hosting to you which provides easy, developer and designer friendly managed hosting platform. With Cloudways, you don't need to focus on PHP hosting, but must focus on building your application. You can easily launch cloud servers on five providers including DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, AWS and GCE.


Cloudways ThunderStack


Being a developer, you must be familiar with the concept of stack - an arrangement of technologies that form the underlying hosting solution.

To provide a blazing fast speed and a glitch-free performance, Cloudways has built a PHP stack, known as ThunderStack. This stack consists of technologies that offer maximum uptime and page load speed to all PHP applications. Check out the following visual representation of ThunderStack and the constituent technologies:


alt_text


As you can see, ThunderStack comprises of a mix of static and dynamic caches with two web servers, Nginx and Apache. This combination ensures the ultimate experience for the users and visitors of your application.


Frameworks and CMS


The strength and popularity of PHP lies in the variety of frameworks and CMS it offers to the developers. Realizing this diversity, Cloudways offers a hassle-free installation of major PHP frameworks including Symfony, Laravel, CakePHP, Zend, and Codeigniter. Similarly, popular CMS such as WordPress, Bolt, Craft, October, Couch, and Coaster CMS - you can install these with the 1-click option. The best part is that if you have a framework or CMS that is not on the list, you can easily install it through Composer.


1-Click PHP Server & Application Installation


Setting up a stack on an unmanaged VPS could take an entire day!

When you opt for Cloudways managed cloud hosting, the entire process of setting up the server, installation of core PHP files and then the setup of the required framework is over in a matter of minutes.

Just sign up at Cloudways, choose your desired cloud provider, and select the PHP stack application.


alt_text


As you can see, your LAMP stack is ready for business in minutes.

Many PHP applications fail because essential services are either turned off or not set up properly. Cloudways offers a centralized location where you can view and set the status of all essential services such as:



* Apache
* Elasticsearch
* Memcached
* MySQL
* PHP-FPM
* Nginx
* New Relic
* Redis
* Varnish


alt_text


Similarly, you can manage SMTP add-ons without any fuss.


Staging Environment


With Cloudways, you can test your web applications for possible bugs and errors before taking it live.

Using the staging feature, developers can first deploy their web sites on test domains where they can analyze the applications performance and potential problems. This helps site administrators to fix those issues timely and view the application performance in real-time.

A default sub domain comes pre-installed with the newly launched application, making it easy for the administrators to test the applications on those testing subdomains. Overall, it's a great feature which helps developers know about the possible errors that may arise during the live deployment.

alt_text

Pre-Installed Composer & Git


PHP development requires working with external libraries and packages. Suppose you are working with Laravel and you need to install an external package. Since Composer has become the standard way of installing packages, it comes preinstalled on the Cloudways platform. Just launch the application and start using Composer in your project.

Similarly, if you are familiar with Git and maintain your project on GitHub or BitBucket, you don’t need to worry about Git installation. Git also comes pre-configured on Cloudways. You can start running commands right after application launch.


Cloudways MySQL Manager


When you work with databases in PHP, you need a database manager. On the Cloudways platform, you will get a custom-built MySQL manager, in which you can perform all the tasks of a typical DB manager.

alt_text


However, if you wish to install and use another database manager like PHPMyAdmin, you can install it by following this simple guide on installing PHPMyadmin.


Server & Application Level SSH


If you use Linux, you typically use SSH for accessing the server(s) and individual applications. A third-party developer requires application and server level access as per the requirements of the client. Cloudways offers SSH access to fit the requirements of the client and users.

alt_text


PHP-FPM, Varnish & Cron Settings


Cloudways provides custom UI panel to set and maintain PHP-FPM and Varnish settings. Although the default configuration is already in place, you can easily change all the settings to suit your own, particular development related requirements. In Varnish settings, you can define URL that you want to exclude from caching. You can also set permissions in this panel.

alt_text


Cron job is a very commonly used component of PHP application development process. On Cloudways platform, you can easily set up Cron jobs in just a few clicks. Just declare the PHP script URL and the time when the script will run.

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Cloudways API & Personal Assistant Bot


Cloudways provides an internal API that offers all important aspects of the server and application management. Through Cloudways API, you can easily develop, integrate, automate, and manage your servers and web apps on Cloudways Platform using the RESTful API. Check out some of the use cases developed using Cloudways API. You just need your API key and email for authentication of the HTTP calls on API Playground and custom applications.

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12595 views · 5 years ago
Creating a PHP Daemon Service

What is a Daemon?

The term daemon was coined by the programmers of Project MAC at MIT. It is inspired on Maxwell's demon in charge of sorting molecules in the background. The UNIX systems adopted this terminology for daemon programs.

It also refers to a character from Greek mythology that performs the tasks for which the gods do not want to take. As stated in the "Reference System Administrator UNIX", in ancient Greece, the concept of "personal daemon" was, in part, comparable to the modern concept of "guardian angel." BSD family of operating systems use the image as a demon's logo.

Daemons are usually started at machine boot time. In the technical sense, a demon is considered a process that does not have a controlling terminal, and accordingly there is no user interface. Most often, the ancestor process of the deamon is init - process root on UNIX, although many daemons run from special rcd scripts started from a terminal console.

Richard Stevenson describes the following steps for writing daemons:
    . Resetting the file mode creation mask to 0 function umask(), to mask some bits of access rights from the starting process.
    . Cause fork() and finish the parent process. This is done so that if the process was launched as a group, the shell believes that the group finished at the same time, the child inherits the process group ID of the parent and gets its own process ID. This ensures that it will not become process group leader.
    . Create a new session by calling setsid(). The process becomes a leader of the new session, the leader of a new group of processes and loses the control of the terminal.
    . Make the root directory of the current working directory as the current directory will be mounted.
    . Close all file descriptors.
    . Make redirect descriptors 0,1 and 2 (STDIN, STDOUT and STDERR) to /dev/null or files /var/log/project_name.out because some standard library functions use these descriptors.
    . Record the pid (process ID number) in the pid-file: /var/run/projectname.pid.
    . Correctly process the signals and SigTerm SigHup: end with the destruction of all child processes and pid - files and / or re-configuration.

How to Create Daemons in PHP

To create demons in PHP you need to use the extensions pcntl and posix. To implement the fast communication withing daemon scripts it is recommended to use the extension libevent for asynchronous I/O.

Lets take a closer look at the code to start a daemon:
umask(0);
$pid = pcntl_fork(); 
if ($pid < 0) {
print('fork failed');
exit 1;
}


After a fork, the execution of the program works as if there are two branches of the code, one for the parent process and the second for the child process. What distinguishes these two processes is the result value returned the fork() function call. The parent process ID receives the newly created process number and the child process receives a 0.
if ($pid > 0) { echo "daemon process started
";
exit; }

$sid = posix_setsid(); if ($sid < 0) {
exit 2;
}

chdir('/'); file_put_contents($pidFilename, getmypid() );
run_process();


The implementation of step 5 "to close all file descriptors" can be done in two ways. Well, closing all file descriptors is difficult to implement in PHP. You just need to open any file descriptors before fork(). Second, you can override the standard output to an error log file using init_set() or use buffering using ob_start() to a variable and store it in log file:
ob_start();
var_dump($some_object);
$content = ob_get_clean();
fwrite($fd_log, $content); 


Typically, ob_start() is the start of the daemon life cycle and ob_get_clean() and fwrite() calls are the end. However, you can directly override STDIN, STDOUT and STDERR:
ini_set('error_log', $logDir.'/error.log');
fclose(STDIN); 
fclose(STDOUT);
fclose(STDERR);
$STDIN = fopen('/dev/null', 'r');
$STDOUT = fopen($logDir.'/application.log', 'ab');
$STDERR = fopen($logDir.'/application.error.log', 'ab');


Now, our process is disconnected from the terminal and the standard output is redirected to a log file.

Handling Signals

Signal processing is carried out with the handlers that you can use either via the library pcntl (pcntl_signal_dispatch()), or by using libevent. In the first case, you must define a signal handler:
function sig_handler($signo)
{
global $fd_log;
switch ($signo) {
case SIGTERM:
fclose($fd_log); unlink($pidfile); exit;
break;
case SIGHUP:
init_data(); break;
default:
}
}

pcntl_signal(SIGTERM, "sig_handler");
pcntl_signal(SIGHUP, "sig_handler");


Note that signals are only processed when the process is in an active mode. Signals received when the process is waiting for input or in sleep mode will not be processed. Use the wait function pcntl_signal_dispatch(). We can ignore the signal using flag SIG_IGN: pcntl_signal(SIGHUP, SIG_IGN); Or, if necessary, restore the signal handler using the flag SIG_DFL, which was previously installed by default: pcntl_signal(SIGHUP, SIG_DFL);

Asynchronous I/O with Libevent

In the case you use blocking input / output signal processing is not applied. It is recommended to use the library libevent which provides non-blocking as input / output, processing signals, and timers. Libevent library provides a simple mechanism to start the callback functions for events on file descriptor: Write, Read, Timeout, Signal.

Initially, you have to declare one or more events with an handler (callback function) and attach them to the basic context of the events:
$base = event_base_new();
$event = event_new();
$errno = 0;
$errstr = '';
$socket = stream_socket_server("tcp://$IP:$port", $errno, $errstr);
stream_set_blocking($socket, 0); event_set($event, $socket, EV_READ | EV_PERSIST, 'onAccept', $base);


Function handlers 'onRead', 'onWrite', 'onError' must implement the processing logic. Data is written into the buffer, which is obtained in the non-blocking mode:
function onRead($buffer, $id)
{
while($read = event_buffer_read($buffer, 256)) {
var_dump($read);
}
}


The main event loop runs with the function event_base_loop($base);. With a few lines of code, you can exit the handler only by calling: event_base_loobreak(); or after the specified time (timeout) event_loop_exit();.

Error handling deals with failure Events:
function onError($buffer, $error, $id)
{
global $id, $buffers, $ctx_connections;
event_buffer_disable($buffers[$id], EV_READ | EV_WRITE);
event_buffer_free($buffers[$id]);
fclose($ctx_connections[$id]);
unset($buffers[$id], $ctx_connections[$id]);
}


It should be noted the following subtlety: Working with timers is only possible through the file descriptor. The example of official the documentation does not work. Here is an example of processing that runs at regular intervals.
$event2 = event_new();
$tmpfile = tmpfile();
event_set($event2, $tmpfile, 0, 'onTimer', $interval);
$res = event_base_set($event2, $base);
event_add($event2, 1000000 * $interval);


With this code we can have a working timer finishes only once. If we need a "permanent" Timer, using the function onTimer we need create a new event each time, and reassign it to process through a "period of time":
function onTimer($tmpfile, $flag, $interval)
{
$global $base, $event2;

if ($event2) {
event_delete($event2);
event_free($event2);
}

call_user_function(‘process_data’,$args);

$event2 = event_new();
event_set($event2, $tmpfile, 0, 'onTimer', $interval);
$res = event_base_set($event2, $base);
event_add($event2, 1000000 * $interval);
}


At the end of the daemon we must release all previously allocated resources:
event_delete($event);
event_free($event);
event_base_free($base);

event_base_set($event, $base);
event_add($event);


Also it should be noted that for the signal processing handler is set the flag EV_SIGNAL: event_set($event, SIGHUP, EV_SIGNAL, 'onSignal', $base);

If needed constant signal processing, it is necessary to set a flag EV_PERSIST. Here follows a handler for the event onAccept, which occurs when a new connection is a accepted on a file descriptor:
function onAccept($socket, $flag, $base) {
global $id, $buffers, $ctx_connections;
$id++;
$connection = stream_socket_accept($socket);
stream_set_blocking($connection, 0);
$buffer = event_buffer_new($connection, 'onRead', NULL, 'onError', $id);
event_buffer_base_set($buffer, $base);
event_buffer_timeout_set($buffer, 30, 30);
event_buffer_watermark_set($buffer, EV_READ, 0, 0xffffff); event_buffer_priority_set($buffer, 10); event_buffer_enable($buffer, EV_READ | EV_PERSIST); $ctx_connections[$id] = $connection;
$buffers[$id] = $buffer;
}


Monitoring a Daemon

It is good practice to develop the application so that it was possible to monitor the daemon process. Key indicators for monitoring are the number of items processed / requests in the time interval, the speed of processing with queries, the average time to process a single request or downtime.

With the help of these metrics can be understood workload of our demon, and if it does not cope with the load it gets, you can run another process in parallel, or for running multiple child processes.

To determine these variables need to check these features at regular intervals, such as once per second. For example downtime is calculated as the difference between the measurement interval and total time daemon.

Typically downtime is determined as a percentage of a measurement interval. For example, if in one second were executed 10 cycles with a total processing time of 50ms, the time will be 950ms or 95%.

Query performance wile be 10rps (request per second). Average processing time of one request: the ratio of the total time spent on processing requests to the number of requests processed, will be 5ms.

These characteristics, as well as additional features such as memory stack size queue, number of transactions, the average time to access the database, and so on.

An external monitor can be obtain data through a TCP connection or unix socket, usually in the format of Nagios or zabbix, depending on the monitoring system. To do this, the demon should use an additional system port.

As mentioned above, if one worker process can not handle the load, usually we run in parallel multiple processes. Starting a parallel process should be done by the parent master process that uses fork() to launch a series of child processes.

Why not run processes using exec() or system()? Because, as a rule, you must have direct control over the master and child processes. In this case, we can handle it via interaction signals. If you use the exec command or system, then launch the initial interpreter, and it has already started processes that are not direct descendants of the parent process.

Also, there is a misconception that you can make a demon process through command nohup. Yes, it is possible to issue a command: nohup php mydaemon.php -master >> /var/log/daemon.log 2 >> /var/log/daemon.error.log &

But, in this case, would be difficult to perform log rotation, as nohup "captures" file descriptors for STDOUT / STDERR and release them only at the end of the command, which may overload of the process or the entire server. Overload demon process may affect the integrity of data processing and possibly cause partial loss of some data.

Starting a Daemon

Starting the daemon must happen either automatically at boot time, or with the help of a "boot script."

All startup scripts are usually in the directory /etc/rc.d. The startup script in the directory service is made /etc/init.d/ . Run command start service myapp or start group /etc/init.d/myapp depending on the type of OS.

Here is a sample script text:
#! /bin/sh
#
$appdir = /usr/share/myapp/app.php
$parms = --master –proc=8 --daemon
export $appdir
export $parms
if [ ! -x appdir ]; then
exit 1
fi

if [ -x /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions ]; then
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions
fi

RETVAL=0

start () {
echo "Starting app"
daemon /usr/bin/php $appdir $parms
RETVAL=$?
[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && touch /var/lock/subsys/mydaemon
echo
return $RETVAL
}

stop () {
echo -n "Stopping $prog: "
killproc /usr/bin/fetchmail
RETVAL=$?
[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && rm -f /var/lock/subsys/mydaemon
echo
return $RETVAL
}

case in
start)
start
;;
stop)
stop
;;
restart)
stop
start
;;
status)
status /usr/bin/mydaemon
;;
*)
echo "Usage:
php
if (is_file('app.phar')) {
unlink('app.phar');
}
$phar = new Phar('app.phar', 0, 'app.phar');
$phar->compressFiles(Phar::GZ);
$phar->setSignatureAlgorithm (Phar::SHA1);
$files = array();
$files['bootstrap.php'] = './bootstrap.php';
$rd = new RecursiveIteratorIterator(new RecursiveDirectoryIterator('.'));
foreach($rd as $file){
if ($file->getFilename() != '..' && $file->getFilename() != '.' && $file->getFilename() != __FILE__) {
if ( $file->getPath() != './log'&& $file->getPath() != './script'&& $file->getPath() != '.')
$files[substr($file->getPath().DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$file->getFilename(),2)] =
$file->getPath().DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$file->getFilename();
}
}
if (isset($opt['version'])) {
$version = $opt['version'];
$file = "buildFromIterator(new ArrayIterator($files));
$phar->setStub($phar->createDefaultStub('bootstrap.php'));
$phar = null;
}
 {start|stop|restart|status}"
;;

RETVAL=$?
exit $RETVAL


Distributing Your PHP Daemon

To distribute a daemon it is better to pack it in a single phar archive module. The assembled module should include all the necessary PHP and .ini files.

Below is a sample build script:
#php app.phar
myDaemon version 0.1 Debug
usage:
--daemon – run as daemon
--debug – run in debug mode
--settings – print settings
--nofork – not run child processes
--check – check dependency modules
--master – run as master
--proc=[8] – run child processes


Additionally, it may be advisable to make a PEAR package as a standard unix-console utility that when run with no arguments prints its own usage instruction:
[NMD%%CODE%%]


Conclusion

Creating daemons in PHP it is not hard but to make them run correctly it is important to follow the steps described in this article.

Post a comment here if you have questions or comments on how to create daemon services in PHP.
8585 views · 5 years ago
Underclocking a Website

For those of you not familiar with the concept of underclocking: it's the opposite of overclocking, that is, you don't speed up CPU but instead slow it down..

What for?

Ask the underclockers, I'm totally not sure. Actually, hanging around the Web these days leaves a feeling that nearly every website out there must have been underclocked, but most of the time it's about tons of unnecessary images, megabytes of javascript (of which hardly a hundred kilobytes gets actually executed), and all that. In this post I will, however, tell you about a server-side approach to underclocking, with a help of our good old friend - the MySQL Database Server.

Today I had a nice chat in my client's development telegram channel. The two other devs, R** and V**, were making a switch of the old image API app to a new MySQL server. A couple of days before that, we have discussed a plan, it was as dumb as possible, just as I like it. Super-simple clear steps that a five-year-old can make. Switch to readonly mode (stop uploads), dump DB, restore the dump on the new server, update database connection details, turn off readonly mode. What could possibly go wrong?

Nothing. Except that it did go wrong. The app that I'm talking about, is a really ancient piece of what is gently called "legacy". Once the app was back to normal again, we noticed a significant slowdown on every page that made use of images. Before that point, I never got to that app and/or its database. I logged in to the MySQL console, and started investigating, at the same point chatting with colleagues.

Me: Is that really important that the tables are MyISAM? It's 2018, you know.. There are dozens of queries in queue waiting for table-level locks.

R**: Are they MyISAM? Really?

Me: Yes.. Any objection against converting them to InnoDB? With the current state of the website, with all those tons of Gateway Timeouts, it's not going to make it worse if I do it right now..


    . minutes later:

Me: Nah, it didn't help a lot.. But, looking at the SHOW PROCESSLIST output, I see something weird. What, do you think, this query does? SELECT LAST_INSERT_ID() FROM images? 

R**: ehh... Gets you the last AUTO_INCREMENT id from images table?

Me: Let's play another good news bad news joke.. Good news: you're right, it gets you the last AUTO_INCREMENT id. Bad news: it's not for table, it's for the session. Worse news: this query gets you the last AUTO_INCREMENT id and does it exactly as many times as there are rows in the images table. how many are there?

R**: about 8mln. #@%&! It's sending 8mln rows on every image upload, through the network!

Me: Bingo! 8mln rows, with one and the same integer value in all of them.

R**: Ouch... Aaaand... Before today, it was not an issue. Because the database was on the same server as the application..

Me: Exactly, it used the loopback interface, and now it's using ehternet, which, apparently, doesn't have a super good bandwidth. We don't have a gigabit channel between servers, do we?

R**: No, it's 100 Mbit

Me: Are you fixing the query, BTW?

R**: yeah, man, deploying it...


Another 10 minutes later, problem is gone, performance is back to normal.

What conclusions can one make from this story?

I can think of two at least:
First: never underestimate legacy code. The ways it can move to bite you in the ass, are mysterious.
Second: if you're working with MySQL or another RDBMS, learn SQL, learn the specific SQL dialect you're using and learn how to trouble shoot issues. In this case, I did not need to look in the PHP code at all in order to help my fellow colleagues out. You can also generalize this principle as "you have to know the tools you're using".

Happy optimizing, folks! Comments appreciated!

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