PHP & Web Development Blogs

Search Results For: simple
Showing 11 to 15 of 30 blog articles.
12904 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.

alt_text


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.

alt_text


Cloudways employs a smart assistant named CloudwaysBot to notify all users about server and application level issues. CloudwaysBot sends the notifications on pre-approved channels including email, Slack and popular task management tools such as Asana and Trello.


Run Your APIs on PHP Stack


Do you have your own API which you want to run on the PHP stack? No problem, because you can do that, too with Cloudways! You can also use REST API like Slim, Silex, Lumen, and others. You can use APIs to speed up performance and require fast servers with lots of resources. So, if you think that your API response time is getting slower due to the large number of requests, you can easily scale your server(s) with a click to address the situation.


Team Collaboration


When you work on a large number of applications with multiple developers, you need to assign them on any specific application. Cloudways provides an awesome feature of team collaboration through which you can assign developers to specific application and give access to them. You can use this tool to assign one developer to multiple applications. Through team feature, you can connect the team together and work on single platform. Access can be of different type; i.e. billing, support and console. You can either give the full access or a limited one by selecting the features in Team tab.

alt_text


Final Words


Managed cloud hosting ensures that you are not bothered by any hosting or server related issues. For practical purposes, this means that developers can concentrate on writing awesome code without worrying about underlying infrastructure and hosting related issues. Do sign up and check out Cloudways for the best and the most cost-effective cloud hosting solution for your next PHP project!
12668 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.
12043 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'));
}

}

11945 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.
9189 views · 5 years ago
Type Arrays with Variadic Functions in PHP

It's a very common task to work with an array of values, each of the same type. Integers, strings, all kinds of objects etc. But PHP is still a weakly typed language, so it's hard to tell if an arbitrary array actually contains only values of a given type.
Of course, you can always use a class:
class IntArray {
private $values = [];
public function add(int $value) {
$this->values[] = $value;
}
}

Then, whenever you need an array of integers, you may write something like this:
class BatchProcessor
{
private $ids;
public function __construct(IntArray $ids) {
$this->ids = $ids;
}
}

Not bad. You'll need a class per type, though, and that may seem a bit of an overkill for such a simple task. Luckily, same result can be achieved differently, but with the same level of confidence in every value type:
class BatchProcessor
{
private $ids;
public function __construct(int ...$ids) {
$this->ids = $ids; }
}

Voila - no need for extra class! This approach uses the PHP 7's type hinting for scalar types, in conjunction with Variable length argument lists available since PHP 5.6. In fact, variable-length argument lists have been around since probably the very first version of the language, but in 5.6 they were revisited and got some nice syntactic sugar in form of "...", so you declare and call them as easy as this:
function func(...$args){...}
$args = [1, 2, 3];
func(...$args);

The approach can work with any type-hinting available in PHP, and I hope you find it somewhat useful! Comment, discuss share and ask questions - I'll be around.

SPONSORS