Category: PHP

PHP Ordinalize Numbers – Add Suffix

Here is a very simple function to use to ordinalize numbers in PHP. This adds the place value suffix to numbers. So you can turn numbers like 1, 2, 3 into 1st, 2nd, 3rd.

Here is the code:

[code lang=”php”]
function ordinalize($int){
if(in_array(($int % 100),range(11,13))){
return $int . “th”;
} else {
switch(($int % 10)){
case 1:
return $int . “st”;
break;
case 2:
return $int . “nd”;
break;
case 3:
return $int . “rd”;
break;
default:
return $int . “th”;
break;
}
}
}
[/code]

Basically the function first checks if the number is in the range of 11-13, and if so it returns the number with “th” attached (11th, 12th, 13th). If it is not in this range it checks the remainder of the number divided by 10.

So let’s say our number was 34. 10 goes into 34 three times, with a remainder of 4. Now the function runs this value against three cases, those being 1, 2, and 3. Since it is not one of them, the default value is used, which is “th.” Thus returning “4th.”

Example input:

[code]
3
10
999
[/code]

Example output:

[code]
3rd
10th
999th
[/code]

Enjoy!

Filed under: PHP, Tutorials, Web ProgrammingTagged with: , ,

Mysql Rows in HTML Option Tag

Let’s say you want to have a simple HTML <select> form as a drop down for rows in a Mysql table. This could be for things like categories, pages, games, anything you want to have in a drop down to navigate to another page or submit a form. What ever the case is, I’m going to make a simple layout for displaying rows returned from a mysql query as <option>’s in a HTML <select> or drop down.

Before we can grab anything from a mysql database we have to connect to it. Find how to connect to a mysql database here.

Let’s make our mysql query first:

[code lang=”php”]

[/code]

This will grab all the rows in “table1” ordered by the value of “id” descending. You can make this query whatever you want whether you want it ordered differently or with other requirements, etc. Now we will just make a <select> inside of a HTML form that holds each of these values as a option.

[code lang=”html”]


Categories

Category:



[/code]

If you have rows returned in you mysql query you will have a HTML drop down that looks like this:

Categories:

This HTML form is being submitted to “index.php?do=nav.” Of course you can point this where ever you want to do whatever you want with it, but let’s say we want to have it direct you to a category with PHP. So we are going to run a function on index.php?do=nav that will redirect the viewer to the category.

[code lang=”php”]

[/code]

Filed under: PHP, Tutorials, Web ProgrammingTagged with: , , ,

PHP error_reporting() Function

The error_reporting() function determines what errors are reported from the current script.

Here is the syntax for this function:

Syntax

[code lang=”php”]
error_reporting(report_level);
[/code]

The report_level parameter is optional and specifies what report level to report for the current script. This can be set by its numeric value or its constant name, however for future versions of PHP it is recommended you use the constant name rather than the numeric value.

Report Levels

Value Constant Description
1 E_ERROR Fatal run-time errors. Errors that can not be recovered
from. Execution of the script is halted
2 E_WARNING Non-fatal run-time errors. Execution of the script is not
halted
4 E_PARSE Compile-time parse errors. Parse errors should only be
generated by the parser
8 E_NOTICE Run-time notices. The script found something that might be
an error, but could also happen when running a script normally
16 E_CORE_ERROR Fatal errors at PHP startup. This is like an E_ERROR in the
PHP core
32 E_CORE_WARNING Non-fatal errors at PHP startup. This is like an E_WARNING
in the PHP core
64 E_COMPILE_ERROR Fatal compile-time errors. This is like an E_ERROR
generated by the Zend Scripting Engine
128 E_COMPILE_WARNING Non-fatal compile-time errors. This is like an E_WARNING
generated by the Zend Scripting Engine
256 E_USER_ERROR Fatal user-generated error. This is like an E_ERROR set by
the programmer using the PHP function trigger_error()
512 E_USER_WARNING Non-fatal user-generated warning. This is like an E_WARNING
set by the programmer using the PHP function trigger_error()
1024 E_USER_NOTICE User-generated notice. This is like an E_NOTICE set by the
programmer using the PHP function trigger_error()
2048 E_STRICT Run-time notices. PHP suggest changes to your code to help
interoperability and compatibility of the code
4096 E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR Catchable fatal error. This is like an E_ERROR but can be
caught by a user defined handle (see also set_error_handler())
8191 E_ALL All errors and warnings, except level E_STRICT (E_STRICT
will be part of E_ALL as of PHP 6.0)

Here is an example of the error_reporting function in PHP:

[code lang=”php”]

[/code]

Filed under: PHP, Web ProgrammingTagged with: , ,

PHP Global Variables with Functions

Here we’re going to take a look at variables inside and outside of PHP functions. It is very easy to make one error with a function and have it return the wrong value. We’re going to make a simple function named “func1” which we’ll tweak a bit to show how variables are used inside and out of functions in PHP.

Here is our function, take a look and see if you can tell what the output of the function will be:

[code lang=”php”]

[/code]

The output is nothing right now. haha So if you thought it was anything but nothing, that’s wrong. The function has no code in it whatsoever right now, and the variable “$var” is set to equal the returned value of the function “func1().” Since the function does nothing, $var is equal to nothing. Easy enough. Now let’s work with some variables.

[code lang=”php”]

[/code]

Now, we have a parameter to our PHP function. A parameter is any variable that is defined within the function’s parentheses. You can have many parameters in your functions – seperated by commas – but it is  a good idea to keep your functions organized and simple to their purpose. So we have $var as a parameter to func1(). You can use these to submit values through a function and work with them inside the function to return a different or desired value. Right now, the function func1() is just returning $var. So whatever is put through as $var initially, will be returned back as it was.

So this code will result in the output:

hello

Let’s say we want to have a global variable we can use in several functions. Global variables are defined as such within a function as previously defined variables outside the function. In the following code we’ll define $name as “Brian” and use it in two functions.

[code lang=”php”]
“;
echo $goodbye;

?>
[/code]

The output of this code will be:

Hello Brian!
Goodbye Brian!

You can use global variables with PHP pages you include on other PHP pages. For example if you have variables defined on one PHP page, in this example “variables.php,” you can call that page to another and globally define variables in your functions to work with them and return what you like.

Variables.php:
[code lang=”php”]

[/code]

Now on our page we are working on, we’ll call it “display.php,” we’ll call the page variables.php and use these variables in functions.

Display.php:
[code lang=”php”]

[/code]

The output of this code will be:

Hello Brian! Thanks for visiting bgallz.org.

Filed under: PHP, Tutorials, Web ProgrammingTagged with: , , ,

PHP Search a Mysql Database

Nearly every website has some kind of search feature that allows you to quickly find the specific things you are looking for. This can be done a number of ways depending on the language and desired features, but I am going to show you how to search a Mysql database using PHP and a simple HTML form. The form is going to submit two variables – “q” and “submit.” The “submit” variable will tell PHP to initiate the search, and “q” will be the defined search terms that it searches the database for.

First, we need the HTML form. We do this with the “form” tags and “input” tags as the keywords and search button.

[code lang=”html”]


[/code]

This form is sending the two variables to the page “search.php.” This is where we will search our mysql database for rows that match the terms. First we will clean the search terms using trim() and addslashes() which will remove any whitespace and add backslashes “\” before any quotation marks, etc. so it isn’t a threat to our mysql database.

Visit my post on Mysql Database Connect to see how to connect to the database.

[codesyntax lang=”php” title=”search.php Source Code”]
<?php

// search.php
if(isset($_POST[“submit”])){
// Form was submitted, collect the search terms.
$search = trim(addslashes($_POST[“q”]));
if($search){
// We got the search terms, now lets search the database.
// Connect to database here.
$sql = mysql_query(“SELECT * FROM table1 WHERE column1 LIKE ‘%$search%'”);
$count = mysql_num_rows($sql);
// This will search column1 in table1 for a match of the search terms. The parentheses before and after the terms allow the search terms to be a part of other text.
if($count > 0){
// Matches were found!
echo “<p>Search: \”<em>”.$search.”</em>\” – “.$count.” Results Found.</p>”;
echo “<table width=\”100%\” align=\”center\” border=\”1\” cellpadding=\”3\” cellspacing=\”0\”>”;
echo “<tr><th align=\”left\”><strong>Search Results</strong></th></tr>”;
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql)){
echo “<tr><td align=\”left\”>”.$row[“column1″].”</td></tr>”;
}
echo “</table>”;
}
} else {
echo “Please enter search terms.”;
}
} else {
// Form wasn’t submitted, redirect to index.php.
header(“Location: index.php”);
}
[/codesyntax]

You can personalize the mysql query however you like of course. Edit the values “table1” and “column1” to match the table you are searching in your database and the columns you want to match the search terms to. You can even match them against multiple columns like so:

[code lang=”php”]
$sql = mysql_query(“SELECT * FROM table1 WHERE column1 LIKE ‘%$search%’ OR column2 LIKE ‘%$search%'”);
[/code]

This will try to match the search terms to column1 or column2. This will make your search range larger, thus bringing more results to your viewers. Of course when displaying your results in the table above it would be smart to include things like: date/time it was submitted, who it was submitted by, category, etc. You can do this by including other columns when you echo the data into the table, like so:

[code lang=”php”]
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql)){
echo “

“.$row[“column1″].” “.$row[“column2″].” “.$row[“column3″].”

“;
}
[/code]

So let’s say you wanted to display posts in a table from users, when it was posted, the last reply, etc. You would have it displayed as so:

Title Last Reply Posted By Time Posted
HTML Linking Stylesheets May 1st, 2010 bgallz April 16th, 2010
Another Post May 1st, 2010 bgallz April 16th, 2010
Another Post May 1st, 2010 bgallz April 16th, 2010
Filed under: MySQL, PHP, TutorialsTagged with: , , ,

PHP Timestamps time()

One of the most common ways to capture the current time in PHP scripting is by using the time() function. This returns the current timestamp which is the number of seconds after a certain date and time in the past. You can use this when entering a mysql query to note the current time of whatever action you are capturing.

We must be connected to a Mysql database in order to submit the value(s) to the database. You can see how to connect to a mysql database here.

For example, lets say we want to capture the current time of when a form is submitted:

[code lang=”php”]
timestamp where the Username field matches a specified value. We will use the date() function to echo the timestamp into a date format. We will use the m/d/Y format:

  • d – Represents the day of the month (01 to 31)
  • m – Represents a month (01 to 12)
  • Y – Represents a year (in four digits)

View a complete list of the PHP date() format list here!

Like so:

[code lang=”php”]
0){
$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($sql);
echo “You joined on: “.date(“m/d/Y”,$row[‘time’]).”.”;
} else {
echo “User has not joined!”;
}
?>
[/code]

This will output the code as such:

You joined on: 05/31/2010.

Filed under: PHP, Tutorials, Web ProgrammingTagged with: , ,

PHP Switch Function

The function switch() in PHP is used to execute different codes based on a variable’s value. This is used in place of the IF/ELSE IF statements. A default value is optional and, if specified, is used when no other option is matched. You must include a break; after each case or the following cases will all return true.

[code lang=”php”]

[/code]

You can use this with forms and such to determine an action based on a submitted value as well! Here is an example using the switch() function in a form:

[code lang=”html”]

Select your gender:

[/code]

Now on our PHP side of the script (submit.php) we will use the switch() function to evaluate the value.

[code lang=”php”]

[/code]

Filed under: PHP, Web ProgrammingTagged with: , ,

PHP Get File Size of Remote File

Previously in a post I made for uploading a file from URL we wanted to include a file size check to make sure the file wasn’t too big before we upload it. Here I’ll show you how to get the remote file’s size and other information before doing other functions with it.

We’ll do this through a simple form. By default a form will encode all characters and convert spaces to “+” so we will leave the enctype undefined.

Then we just need the text input named “url” which I gave a default value “Enter URL Here…” and the Javascript-related attribute – onfocus. So when you focus on the text input it will change from the default value to blank.

Finally of course, we include the submit input named “submit” with the value “Submit.” We will use this value to check that the  form was submitted.

[codesyntax lang=”html4strict” title=”HTML Form”]
<form action=”getinfo.php” method=”post”>
<input type=”text” name=”url” size=”40″ value=”Enter URL Here…” onfocus=”if(this.value == ‘Enter URL Here…’) this.value = ”;” /> <input type=”submit” name=”submit” value=”Submit” />
</form>
[/codesyntax]

This HTML form will submit the entered url to getinfo.php.

We are going to the function fopen() to get the information we need from the remote file. There is one thing to be aware of using fopen() to retrieve this data. You need to be sure the fopen wrappers is enabled in your php.ini. This can not be changed using ini_set().

We are going to create a variable “contents” and add each line of the file to it as we read it. Then we will use the function mb_strlen() to get the file size of the variable. Normally we would use strlen(), however that will only read one character as one byte. That doesn’t really give you the most accurate reading if you have special characters in the file which are more than one byte.

By default the function fgets() reads each line of a file 1024 bytes at a time. The function runs until either the specified length is reached (1024 bytes) or to the end of the file. It is more resource efficient to specify a read length:

“Until PHP 4.3.0, omitting it would assume 1024 as the line length. If the majority of the lines in the file are all larger than 8KB, it is more resource efficient for your script to specify the maximum line length.” – php.net

getinfo.php

[codesyntax lang=”php” title=”getinfo.php Source Code”]
<?php
// getinfo.php

if($_POST[“submit”]){
// Form is submitted.

// Check the fopen wrapper settings in php.ini
if (ini_get(“allow_url_fopen”) == 1) {

// Open the file.
$file = fopen(trim($_POST[“url”]), “r”);

if($file){
// We got the file.

$contents = “”;
while($line = fgets($file,1024)){
// Write each line to the string contents a kilobyte at a time.
$contents .= $line;
}

$filesize = mb_strlen($contents,”8bit”);
$kb = $filesize / 1024; // Returns the file size in kilobytes
echo “<strong>File Size</strong>:  “.$filesize.” bytes or “.$kb.” kilobytes.”;

} else {

echo “Remote file not found.”;

}

} else {

echo “Fopen wrappers not enabled.”;

}

}

?>
[/codesyntax]

The page will display the file size in bytes and kilobytes, as so:
File Size: 1024 bytes or 1 kilobytes.

Filed under: PHP, Tutorials, Web ProgrammingTagged with: , , ,

PHP Upload file from URL

Let’s say you have a form on a page with the input for URL to a file so you can upload it to your server. You can do this using PHP functions.

Here is an example of a form to upload:

[code lang=”html”]

Enter URL:

[/code]

Now on upload.php we need to have PHP run an upload of the file based on the entered URL. Here is how it will look.

The form above submitted two variables, the url text, and the submit button (value “submit”). So when we start the PHP code, we check it was submitted with the submit button.

We trim the url submitted through the form using the function trim() for the url to be accessed then create a filename using the function basename(). We then check that the url exists after having these functions applied to it. This is what we are going to submit to upload.

$file = Opening the url submitted with read-only permissions. This is defined with the “rb.”

[code lang=”php”]
$file = fopen($url,”rb”);
[/code]

Once we have opened the file we create a random number. This is going to be added to the file’s name when we upload it so that no two files have the same name. This is done very simply with the function rand(). Simply set the minimum and maximum for random numbers.

$newfile = Open the new file we are creating on our server. This actually creates the file on the server in the folder $directory with the random number ($rand) and the file’s name ($filename). This is done with writing permissions so that we can write the data from the url file to this one.

[code lang=”php”]
$rand = rand(1000,9999); // random number 4 digits long
$filename = $rand . basename($url); // places random number in front of the url’s base name
$newfile = fopen($directory . $filename, “wb”);
[/code]

If this new file can be created, we start writing the data to the file. To do this we use the function feof(). So if the new file exists now, while we haven’t reached the end of the url file, we write this content to the one on our server. This sounds a little confusing but it is quite easy.

Code:

[code lang=”php”]
if($newfile){
while(!feof($file)){

// Write the url file to the directory.
fwrite($newfile,fread($file,1024 * 8),1024 * 8);
}

}
[/code]

This script basically says write the data of the url file up until we reach 8kb, to the new file we created on the server. You can adjust the maximum size in kb by changing the “8” to whatever you wish. Once it reaches the end of the file, it will stop writing.

Now let’s say we want to check for filetypes. No one wants people uploading unsafe filetypes to their server. This is a serious problem if you do not check the filetypes being uploaded. So once we establish that the file exists through the URL we are going to check its extension to match ones we allow.

$valid_exts = An array of the valid extensions we allow the user to upload. (i.e. image files).

[code lang=”php”]
$valid_exts = array(“jpg”,”jpeg”,”gif”,”png”);
[/code]

$ext = We find the extension of the file by using the function explode(). This function splits the url into an array based on a seperator, in this case the seperator is a period “.” to find the trailing extension. We then set this to all lowercase because that is what our valid extensions are in. Also, we use the end() function to this array because it is possible the url has more than one period in it. We want to make sure we get JUST the extension on the end.

[code lang=”php”]
$ext = end(explode(“.”,strtolower(basename($url))));
[/code]

Here is the complete code:

Upload.php

[codesyntax lang=”php” title=”upload.php PHP Source Code”]<?php
// UPLOAD.PHP
if($_POST[“submit”]){
$url = trim($_POST[“url”]);
if($url){
$file = fopen($url,”rb”);
if($file){
$directory = “./downloads/”; // Directory to upload files to.
$valid_exts = array(“jpg”,”jpeg”,”gif”,”png”); // default image only extensions
$ext = end(explode(“.”,strtolower(basename($url))));
if(in_array($ext,$valid_exts)){
$rand = rand(1000,9999);
$filename = $rand . basename($url);
$newfile = fopen($directory . $filename, “wb”); // creating new file on local server
if($newfile){
while(!feof($file)){
// Write the url file to the directory.
fwrite($newfile,fread($file,1024 * 8),1024 * 8); // write the file to the new directory at a rate of 8kb/sec. until we reach the end.
}
echo ‘File uploaded successfully! You can access the file here:’.”\n”;
echo ”.$directory.$filename.”;
} else { echo ‘Could not establish new file (‘.$directory.$filename.’) on local server. Be sure to CHMOD your directory to 777.’; }
} else { echo ‘Invalid file type. Please try another file.’; }
} else { echo ‘Could not locate the file: ‘.$url.”; }
} else { echo ‘Invalid URL entered. Please try again.’; }
}
?>

[/codesyntax]

When the form is submitted, PHP uploads the file to the directory – $directory – which is set to “./downloads/” by default. The function !feof() reads as – before reaching the end of a file. So while it hasn’t reached the end, write to $directory. Once the function returns false (when we have reached the end of the file) it will stop. The path to the file is given as “$directory.$filename.”

I have made a script for uploading multiple files from a URL or your computer’s HDD viewable here:

https://bgallz.dev/1345/php-upload-multiple-files-url/

Enjoy!

Filed under: PHP, Tutorials, Web ProgrammingTagged with: , , , , ,