one man army's blog

A Quick Overview of the XML DOM Extension in PHP 5

zdzislaw — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:00:51 +0000

"To be frank, how many times in your life as a PHP developer have you had to deal with XML documents? Probably dozens of times, particularly if you use it to develop PHP applications that implement some kind of web service, or possibly when creating RSS feeds and template files for different web sites. And, surely, the list goes on and on.But wait a minute! Of course, I�??m not saying that XML is the evil player of this game, because you�??d be completely misunderstanding my point. XML is great for different reasons, which are definitely out of the scope of this article. But when you need to build large XML documents from scratch or even parse them in some way, you can be faced with a quite challenging and time-consuming process that might cause hair loss! However, as you know, PHP 5 comes equipped with a number of extensions that will make your life much easier when it comes to building and parsing things like XML data. For example, there�??s the �??SimpleXML�?� library, which permits you to perform some useful tasks, such as reading XML data from files and strings, iterating over XML documents, parsing individual nodes, and so forth. PHP 5 has yet another extension that can be really helpful for handling XML data in all sorts of clever ways. In this case, I�??m talking about the one called �??XML DOM.�?� If you�??ve already worked with it during the development of your PHP 5 applications, then you should be well aware of its strong capabilities when it comes to dealing with XML data. Of course, there�??s the possibility that aside from being a PHP programmer, you�??re also a professional diver, who spends most of your time exploring the beauty of the oceans and, in consequence, you've never heard about this PHP extension. In that case, let me tell you a couple of interesting things that you can do with it. Simply put, the DOM XML extension, as its name suggests, will permit you to work on XML documents by way of the DOM API. In this way, it allows you to read from and write to XML files, build XML data from scratch and parse specific nodes, extract them as an array, and even process HTML markup in different ways by using a handful of intuitive methods that closely resemble the ones used with JavaScript. " Full story here

Building a Complete Web Searching Class with Yahoo Web Services and PHP 5

zdzislaw — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:00:57 +0000

"Welcome to the final part of the series �??Using Yahoo! Web Services with PHP 5.�?� As the title claims, this series walks you through the basic concepts surrounding the correct utilization of the most relevant web search services provided by Yahoo! and puts the corresponding theory into practice by utilizing both procedural and object-oriented approaches.As you possibly know, Yahoo! has recently released a thorough set of Web Service APIs that can be easily consumed by using some popular server-side programming languages, including my favorite one, PHP. If you're interested in learning how to implement these useful services directly from your own PHP 5 applications, then look no further, because you've come to the right place. Provided that you already went through all of the previous articles of the series, I could say that at this point you should have a pretty solid background in consuming the Yahoo! Web Search Services by way of some procedural PHP functions and a few straightforward classes as well. As you saw for yourself in the course of the preceding articles, implementing a particular Yahoo! Web Search Service with PHP 5 is a relatively straightforward process, since it only requires an intermediate background in fetching file contents and processing multidimensional arrays using a few common PHP functions. However, there's one particular thing that you'll certainly recall from the last tutorial: on that occasion I showed you how to utilize the respective Yahoo! traditional and video search services via two modular PHP 5 classes, which implemented some basic methods for performing the searches. Of course, it's fair to mention here that the signatures corresponding to all these classes were very similar to each other. This naturally implies that it's possible to use inheritance to create one base class, and then derive some sub classes according to the web service that needs to be implemented in a specific case. Sounds pretty logical, right? So, this last installment of the series will be entirely focused on demonstrating how Inheritance can be used in a helpful way to build a set of child classes that will come in handy for consuming a specific Yahoo! Search Service. Now that you know the subject of this tutorial, it's time to learn how these web searching classes will be created with PHP 5. Ready to start? Let's go!" Full story here

Python: Count on It

zdzislaw — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:00:56 +0000

" We touched on how numbers work in Python a while back in the beginning of our series on Python. In the past few tutorials we discussed strings and how to manipulate them and some of the string methods. Here, in this article, we will go over some of the math modules and discuss different uses for numbers in Python.Intergalactic Integers Intentionally Invaded Iraq Intent on Infiltrating Its Islamic Oil

Yeah you heard me. Try saying that headline three times fast. Or even slow. Although I am sure there is a way we could do just that with our Python integers, it won't be the focus of today's article. Instead we will cover more fascinating subjects, like explaining why our buddy Python has two types of integers. Shocking, I know.

As you know, integers are whole numbers, both positive and negative, that do not have a value to the right of the decimal point. There are two kinds of integers in Python: regular and long." Full story here

Class Inheritance with PHP

zdzislaw — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 10:19:14 +0000

"Class Inheritance with PHP There are many benefits of inheritance with PHP, the most common is simplifying and reducing instances of redundant code. Class inheritance may sound complicated, but think of it this way. Consider a tree. A tree is made up of many parts, such as the roots that reside in the ground, the trunk, bark, branches, leaves, etc. Essentially inheritance is a connection between a child and its parent. " Full story here

Executing Destructors Manually in PHP 5

zdzislaw — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:00:56 +0000

Welcome to the final chapter of the series Understanding Destructors in PHP 5. In consonance with this article s title this series walks you through the basics of utilizing class destructors in object-based applications and also provides you with a decent number of hands-on examples so you can start incorporating these useful methods into your PHP 5 classes with minor efforts....
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Using Yahoo Web Services to Perform Searches with an Object-Oriented Approach

zdzislaw — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:00:56 +0000

If you re a PHP developer who wants to take the first steps toward building web applications that interact with specific web services in this article series you ll find an approachable guide to implementing some of the most useful search services provided by Yahoo by using a few simple PHP scripts....
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Joomla Templates: Creating a Pure CSS Template

zdzislaw — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:08:07 +0000

"This week you'll learn how to create a Joomla template that uses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to produce a layout. This makes the template code easier to validate. It also tends to load faster and is easier to maintain.`By Barrie North. 0211" Full story here

Python Strings: Spinning Yarns

zdzislaw — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:01:05 +0000

As the students used to say to Mr. Kotter Welcome back welcome back welcome back. In our previous article we talked some more about how to manipulate strings in Python leaving off with indexing and slicing. Here we will pick up again with slicing using it to change the contents of a string....
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Retrieving Information on Several Objects with Destructors in PHP 5

zdzislaw — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 14:00:48 +0000

Welcome to the fourth part of the series Understanding Destructors in PHP 5. Made up of five comprehensive tutorials this series brings to you the foundations of how to declare and implement destructors in PHP 5-driven classes. And it tackles this process from a practical point of view since you ll be able to learn these methods by using copious examples....
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Universally Related Popup Menus AJAX Edition: Part 3

zdzislaw — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:17:06 +0000

"Last week we looked at an in-depth explanation of the JavaScript code. This week, we conclude the series with a line-by-line walkthrough of the JavaScript code and describe the server-side classic ASP script code. By Rob Gravelle. 0206" Full story here