Saturday, April 27, 2019

What I Have Learned Today: Using PHP Through Command Line Interface (CLI)

One of the things that I was interested in is how some PHP frameworks can be used from command line interface to execute PHP code and commands. Some of the tools that I have used are composer and PHPUnit and both can be used from command line. For that reason, I started to think about adding this feature to WebFiori Framework.

After few attempts and failures, I managed to add basic support for running the framework from command line. You can see from the following picture that running the framework from CMD is working without problems.

There are few things that I had to do in order to add support for running the framework from the command line. The things are the following:

Checking if main script file is loaded using command line using the method php_sapi_name().
Initializing some $_SERVER and $_ENV variables as they are not initialized if PHP script is accessed through command line.
Getting command line arguments using the constant $_SERVER['argv'].

For the last two steps, I created new class to handle the two tasks. The name of the class is CLI.php After doing that, I have only changed few lines of code in main class to redirect user to use CLI as shown in the following picture.

Saturday, March 9, 2019

WebFiori, New Web Development Framework

WebFiori Framework is new web development framework which was built in top of PHP scripting language. It was designed from scratch to provide the developer with needed tools to setup new website or create a very complex web application using minimum tools.

Basic features (Taken from official website):

Theming and the ability to create multiple UIs for the same web page using any CSS or JavaScript framework.
Support for routing that makes the ability of creating search-engine-friendly links an easy task.
Creation of web APIs that supports JSON, data filtering and validation.
Basic support for MySQL schema and query building.
Lightweight. The total size of framework core files is less than 3 megabytes.
Access management by assigning system user a set of privileges.
The ability to create and manage multiple sessions at once.
Support for creating and sending nice-looking emails in a simple way by using SMTP protocol.
Autoloading of user defined classes.
The ability to create automatic tasks and let them run in specific time using CRON.
Support for logging of system events.
Well-defined file upload and file handling sub-system.

The project is currently hosted in my personal website and it can be accessed through the URL: https://programmingacademia.com/webfiori . You can find more information about the project there.

Another thing is that the project is open source and is licensed under MIT license. You can grab the source code of the framework from my GitHub repo at https://github.com/usernane/webfiori.

Your Contribution is Appreciated

One of the things that I need your help in is your feedback (Negative or positive). You can help me by trying the framework your self and provide me with your feedback. You check https://programmingacademia.com/webfiori/learn to get started.

Another thing is that you might find hundreds of issues in the source code of the framework since I'm not an experienced PHP developer (Design issues, Security issues, Bad practices, etc...). What you can possibly do is to review the source code and report any issue that you might find regarding how things are done.

Also, if you need any help regarding how to use the framework or you are just interested, please join telegram group using the following link: https://t.me/webfiori

Thank you for your time.

Saturday, September 15, 2018

JsonX APIs

Note: This library is now part of WebFiori Framework. Updated API Docs can be found at https://programmingacademia.com/webfiori/docs/jsonx/.

This page contain APIs descriptions of the library JsonX, A library that can be used to create JSON strings in PHP. The library consist of two files only, JsonX.php and JsonI.php. The first file contains the class 'JsonX' which is the core component. The other file contains an interface which can be implemented by other classes to create a custom JSON strings.

Basic Usage Example

The next lines of code shows how to use the library in very simple way.

<?php
include 'JsonX.php';
include 'JsonI.php';

//create new instance of JsonX
$json = new JsonX();

//add attributes to JSON object.
$json->add('a-string', 'This is a string.');
$json->add('a-number', 44);
$json->add('a-boolean', FALSE);
$json->add('null-value', NULL);

//send Json object as response
header('content-type:application/json');
echo $json;

Class JsonX Constants
Class JsonX Functions
Interface JsonI Functions
- toJSON()

Class JsonX

Version: 1.2

Author: Ibrahim BinAlshikh

const TYPES

Type: Array
Description: An array of supported JOSN data types. The array has 7 values: 'integer', 'string', 'double', 'boolean', 'NULL' and 'object'.
Since: 1.0

const SPECIAL_CHARS

Type: Array
Description: An array which contains JSON special characters that can be a part of a string. The array has the following characters: \\, /, ", \t, \r, \n and \f.
Since: 1.0

const SPECIAL_CHARS_ESC

Type: Array
Description: An array which contains escaped JSON special characters that can be a part of a string.
Since: 1.0

public function add($key, $value, $options=array())

Adds a new value to include in the generated JSON string.

Parameters:

$key:
- Type: string
- Description: The name of the attribute that the given value will be stored in. Usually called the "name" of the "value".
$value:
- Type: mixed
- Description: The value of the key. It can be an integer, a double, a string, an array or an object. If NULL is given, the method will set the value at the given key to 'null'.
$options: [Optional]
- Type: Array
- Description: An associative array of options. Currently, the array has the following options:
  - string-as-boolean: A boolean value. If set to TRUE and the given string represents a boolean value (like 'yes' or 'no'), the string will be added as a boolean value. Default is FALSE.
  - array-as-object: A boolean value. If set to TRUE, the array will be added as an object. Default is FALSE.

Returns:

boolean: TRUE if the value is set. If the given value or key is invalid, the function will return FALSE.

Since: 1.1

public function addNumber($key, $value)

Adds a number to include in the generated JSON string.

Parameters:

$key:
- Type: string
- Description: The name of the attribute that the given value will be stored in. Usually called the "name" of the "value"
$value:
- Type: integer | double
- Description: The number which will be added. Note that if the given number is INF or NAN, The method will add them as a string.

Returns:

boolean: TRUE if the value is set. If the given value or key is invalid, the function will return FALSE.

Since: 1.0

public function addBoolean($key, $value)

Adds a boolean value (true or false) to include in the generated JSON string.

Parameters:

$key:
- Type: string
- Description: The name of the attribute that the given value will be stored in. Usually called the "name" of the "value"
$value: [Optional]
- Type: boolean
- Description: TRUE or FALSE. If not specified, The default will be TRUE.

Returns:

boolean: TRUE if the value is set. If the given value or key is invalid, the function will return FALSE.

Since: 1.0

public function addString($key, $value, $asBoolean)

Adds a string to include in the generated JSON string.

Parameters:

$key:
- Type: string
- Description: The name of the attribute that the given value will be stored in. Usually called the "name" of the "value"
$value:
- Type: string
- Description: The value of the string. Note that if the given string is one of the following and the parameter $asBoolean is set to TRUE, it will be converted into boolean (case insensitive).
  - yes => TRUE
  - no => FALSE
  - y => TRUE
  - n => FALSE
  - t => TRUE
  - f => FALSE
  - true => TRUE
  - false => FALSE
  - on => TRUE
  - off => FALSE
  - ok => TRUE
$asBoolean: [Optional]
- Type: boolean
- Description: If set to TRUE and the string represents a boolean value, then the string will be added as a boolean. Default is FALSE.

Returns:

boolean: TRUE if the value is set. If the given value or key is invalid, the function will return FALSE.

Since: 1.0

public function addArray($key, $value, $asObject)

Adds an array to include in the generated JSON string.

Parameters:

$key:
- Type: string
- Description: The name of the attribute that the given value will be stored in. Usually called the "name" of the "value"
$value:
- Type: Array
- Description: The array that will be added. If the given array is indexed array, all values will be added as single entity (e.g. [1, 2, 3]). If the array is associative, the values of the array will be added as objects.
$asObject: [Optional]
- Type:
- Description: If this parameter is set to TRUE, the array will be added as an object in JSON string. Default is FALSE.

Returns:

boolean: TRUE if the value is set. If the given value or key is invalid, the function will return FALSE.

Since: 1.0

public function addObject($key, $value)

Adds a PHP object to include in the generated JSON string.

Parameters:

$key:
- Type: string
- Description: The name of the attribute that the given value will be stored in. Usually called the "name" of the "value">
$value:
- Type: JsonI | Object
- Description: The parameter can be a PHP object or an object that implements the interface 'JsonI'. If the object does not implement the interface 'JsonI', then the function will try to extract object information based on its public functions and the generated JSON will be on the format {"prop-0":"something","prop-1":"something else","prop-n":"xxx"}.

Returns:

boolean: TRUE if the value is set. If the given value or key is invalid, the function will return FALSE.

Since: 1.0

public function get($key)

Returns a string that represents the value at the given key.

Parameters:

$key:
- Type: string
- Description: The name of the attribute that the value is stored in. Usually called the "name" of the "value"

Returns:

string | NULL: A string that represents the value at the given key. If the key does not exists, the function will return NULL.

Since: 1.2

public function hasKey($key)

Checks if a key is exist or not.

Parameters:

$key:
- Type: string
- Description: The name of the key. Usually called the "name".

Returns:

boolean: The function will return TRUE if the key exists. FALSE if not.

Since: 1.2

public static function escapeJSONSpecialChars($str)

Escape JSON special characters from a string.

Parameters:

$str:
- Type: string
- Description: A value of one of JSON object properties. If it is NULL,the method will return empty string.

Returns:

string: The same string with JSON special characters escaped.

Since: 1.0

Interface JsonI

Version: 1.0

Author: Ibrahim BinAlshikh

public function toJSON()

This function can be implemented by any class that will be added as an attribute to any JsonX instance.It is used to customize the generated JSON string.

Parameters:

NONE

Returns:

JsonX: An instance of JsonX

Since: 1.0

Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Storing Files in Server. File System or Database?

When me and my teammates were building our senior project, we needed to store files in the server. The easiest option for us was to keep the files in server file system and add a link to each file in the database. After graduation, I came across a new concept in database management which is the BLOB. According to MySQL documentation, BLOB stands for Binary Large Object. It is a datatype that is used to store a variable amount of data. Many database administrators use it to store resources files like images or small videos. The reason that I had to learn about the blob is that one of the requirements of developing a web application is to store files in the database rather than using file system.

After a while, one question popped in my mind. Which of the two is better to use? Storing files in server ‘s file system or storing them in the database? As usual, Googling is the best way to find answers for many questions. After searching and reading, I found that many database administrators store files in the database. And some uses file system. This post will go through the two approaches and gives the advantages and the disadvantages of using one of the two.

Storing Files in File System, The Advantages

Speed

If one cares about the speed, file system is the option to go with. The speed of serving multiple files using file system is faster according to many. Also, the speed of creating backups of the files will be much faster than creating a backup of the files while they are stored in the database.

Portability

Using file system to store files will help in portability. This means that if the application will migrate to use different database management system, it will be easy to move the files without any compatibility issues since the database will have only file reference. By storing files in database, the database management system might have an additional layer that wrap the file or alter its structure.

Storing Files in File System, The Disadvantages:

Backup and Recovery

If you are using file system to store files, you will have to create two backups, one for the files in the file system and one for the database. Same thing applies to recovering data. In addition to that, many database management systems come with a utility to create backups automatically. While in file systems, there are no such tool in many cases.

Reference Structure

Usually, files in the server must be accessed using some Kind of a reference if they stored in file system (Usually a URL). If a file or a directory is moved to somewhere else, the structure of the reference will change for sure. In this case, the reference to many files must be updated in the database which might take some time.

Storing Files in Database, The Advantages:

Integrity

One of the biggest advantages is data integrity. This means that any data needed by the application can be accessed from only one place. Also, this means that the information that is related to each other will be in one place. For example, if a company needs to store the pictures of its employees, they will be in the same record of employee information.

Easy to Manage

Since files are in the database, most likely that the management will be performed through the application that will use the files.

Storing Files in Database, The Disadvantages:

Performance

One issue of storing files in database is performance. This issue can be seen when the application needs to fetch many resources from the database. Also, it can be noticed while creating a backup of the database.

No FTP Access

Some prefer to use file system over database storage for this reason. They prefer to mange files using FTP clients instead of using application logic to add, update or remove files.

Configuration

If anyone plan to store very large files in database, sure he might struggle with modifying many settings in the server and the database management system. Myself, I had many issues in building one web application. The files that I was trying to store are video files of size 20 to 30 megabytes in MySQL server using Apache Server with PHP. The first issue was PHP’s upload limit. The second was the global variable max_allowed_packet. I had to update the settings of both till I was able to upload files.

My Opinion

Simply, there is no best option. It depends on your needs. If you thrive for speed and you have very large files to store, go with storing files in file system. For small files (Around 1 to 5 Megabytes), It would be better to go with storing files in a database. There might be other factors that can affect the final decision. So, before deciding, do your homework then select the option that suits your needs.

References:

Most of the information in this page are collected from the following websites. The answers are provided by many people who had different situations in storing files in a server. You can go and read more if you like.