Entries tagged "PHP"
Getting Your Projects Done Faster by Writing Less Code with the Short-hand if()
Have you coded a simple if() construct that sets a variable to one of two values and thought to yourself "Five lines of code; there should be a better way?" Okay, maybe it's just me. Either way, let's take a look at the Ternary Operator [aka the short-hand if()]. [Continue reading]
Condensing if() Constructs to Improve the Scanability of Your Code
In a previous post, we went through the typical setup for the if() construct. The good thing (or bad) is that there's a lot of freedom when it comes to writing code. You could for example write the entire if() construct that contains dozens of lines of code and never use a line break. You could, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. However, there are other non-"standard" ways of writing out your if() constructs. [Continue reading]
Small Changes to Make If Statements Easier to Scan
When developing programs with hundreds of lines of code, it's beneficial to write code that's easy to scan. That way when you're updating the program months or years later, it will be much easier to follow along. In addition to breaking the code into logical chunks, adding comments, etc., it's helpful to indent code which only gets executed given a specific criteria…such as code that's within an if/else statement. [Continue reading]
Changing Database Entries on the Fly by Embedding PHP Variables
When pulling information from a database, have you ever needed to change aspects of the text on the fly? For example, I have a form that contains several questions like "Did you utilize any of the website resources in 2011?" These questions are stored in a database and need to change annually. So next year the 2011 should be changed to 2012. The year could be removed altogether in some cases, but others require the year to remain. In a perfect world, a PHP variable could be stored in the database along with the question, but that can't be done…can it? [Continue reading]
Reduce Website Maintenance by Importing Common Contact Information with PHP
While working on websites, one thing I've learned over the years is that change happens. People will leave the organization. Organizations change names. When change occurs, the thing we need to keep in mind is how that change affects the website. For example, if someone retires and their contact information is listed dozens or hundreds of times throughout the website, it's going to take a while to update everything. But this type issue could be avoided. Instead of hard-coding the information everywhere, it could be imported with PHP. [Continue reading]
Using PHP to Dynamically Hide Content after an Expiration Date
If you need to pull something offline by a specific date, what happens when no one's around to remove the content? People get sick or maybe a deadline was overlooked and you're out of the office. You could just suck it up, go into work, and remove the registration form from the website. Or you could write a little PHP code to disable the form (or any other information) for you. [Continue reading]
Maintaining Line Breaks When Copying Code from PHPFreaks.com
While helping people on PHPFreaks.com, I tend to have issues copying code from their forum and pasting it into Dreamweaver. For some reason all the line breaks are removed from the code. As much as I love manually adding dozens of line breaks back into the code, there has to be a quicker solution. [Continue reading]
How to Turn Off Curly Quotes in WordPress so They Don’t Break Your PHP Tutorials
Have you ever copied PHP code from a website tutorial, but no matter what you did you couldn't get it to work? Or maybe you're posting code on a WordPress blog and can't figure out why people are saying the code doesn't work? Well you're not alone. You may have been bitten by the curly quote bug in WordPress. [Continue reading]
Setting up a Makeshift Test Environment for Experimenting with PHP Code
There are times I need to experiment with new code or re-familiarizing myself with code already in use. But there are times when other project code (sending out emails, updating databases, etc.) gets in the way of the tests. The code could be commented out to prevent it from executing, but that may be more work than it's worth. Plus I may forget to uncomment something when the tests are over. Instead, it can be easier to create a new file and focus on the code at hand. [Continue reading]
Security Issues with “You Are Now Leaving Our Website” Pages
If you've visited a government website, there's a good chance that you've seen the "You are now leaving our website" message. The message, as you have probably guessed, is displayed when a visitor clicks a link leading to an external website. Now I don't plan to discuss the validity of this technique, but the potential security risk if utilized incorrectly. [Continue reading]
