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Symfony: XSL module to install in Ubuntu

admin — Mon, 10 May 2010 20:22:58 +0000

Following the tutorial Simfony (known PHP Framework) to the preliminary pre-requisite, reflected the lack of XSL module under Apache and PHP. Specifically, the message I found was:

[[WARNING]] XSL module is installed: FAILED
*** Install the XSL module (recommended for Propel) ***

The workaround is to install apt-get the missing modules as follows:

sudo apt-get install libapache2-modxslt php5-xsl

then restart the instance of Apache2

sudo / etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Restarting the configuration check the error message should be gone.

WordPress: add Google Buzz button

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:24:56 +0000

Google Buzz is now on everyone’s lips for being anti Facebook situation. It’s time to exploit this situation to your blog, because the service is heavily oriented social network. Technically Google Buzz is largely integrated into Google Reader, the aggregator of RSS feeds, so we can exploit this relationship to create an appropriate button. You only have to make sure that in your profile Buzz (above under the heading “connected sites”) has been added to Google Reader.

Obviously we must have a basic knowledge of PHP and WordPress system, but simply add a few lines in the right place, through the WordPress editor (in the Appearance -> Editor).

Here’s the code:

1
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 echo get_permalink() ?>&title= the_title();?>&snippet= the_excerpt(); ?>&srcURL= echo get_settings(‘home’); ?>” Title=”Share this via Google Buzz> echo bloginfo('template_url');">/images/buzz-icon2.gif"/>
a> Google Buzz

Also looking between the various utilities proposed in Google Reader you can add a small clip (bottom of the page under “Add a clip”) to your site, where “share” show your Buzz’s.

Fatal error: session_start(): Failed to initialize storage module:

admin — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 17:14:39 +0000

If you get this error:
Fatal error: session_start(): Failed to initialize storage module:
The solution is changing your current php.ini settings for session.save_handler user to session.save_handler files.

Edit your php.ini file from:

[Session]
; Handler used to store/retrieve data.
session.save_handler = user

[Session]
; Handler used to store/retrieve data.
session.save_handler = files

If you do not have access to the php.ini file, you may try an alternate .htaccess rewrite method. Edit your .htaccess and place the following lines:

RewriteEngine On
php_value session.save_handler files

Excel and PHP

admin — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 17:12:05 +0000

From Office 97 version, the World famous spreadsheet can read html table’s like a spreadsheet rows and colums.
With this interesting feature we can create .xls file on the fly from php with a simple play of

html tag.

Here the code


    $filename="spreadsheet.xls";
    header ("Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel");
    header ("Content-Disposition: inline; filename=$filename");
?>



My XLS title



    for ($i=1;$i < 100; $i++)
    {
        echo "";for($j=1;$j<100;$j++){$a=$i*$j;echo"";}echo"";}?>

          
        
                
             $a

With line 3 we exchange the html data to excel
With line 4 we download the file insted of open ino the browser

as you can see, you can play with the table and collect data from a database, for generate some .xls spreadsheet on the fly, with the data you want for specific user, or specific situations.

MySQL sample connection

admin — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 17:07:14 +0000

Pre-requisites:
Database host or IP
Database name
Username and password access of db.

First we need to declare some critical data like username and password, so i strongly recommended to store this value into a different file where php will ask tables and data, this for security reason.

In the php convension, usually we make a file called config.inc.php, because the .inc between the file name and real extension, dont show nothing if directly called to your browser.

Let’s make this file usually called config.inc.php

      
      //database parameters
      $db_host = "localhost"; //usually localhost, but can be an IP
      $db_user = "myusername";
      $db_password = "mypassword";
      $db_name = "mydatabasename";
      ?>

Now we must pass to php this values, if you are planning a project, usually is a good idea to make next step to a file called database.php and perform the connection.

      
      include("config.inc.php");
      //now check our usr/pass credentials
      $db = mysql_connect($db_host, $db_user, $db_password);
      if ($db == FALSE)
      die ("put here an error message");
 
      //now we see if database name can be read/write
      mysql_select_db($db_name, $db)
      or die ("ERROR: your parameteres are wrong");
      ?>

With mysql_connect your have ask a connection to database server with your username and password, usually on shared service, your credentials give access to one database, so the server must reply if you have a valid account on it. Be careful, the variables $db_host, $db_user, $db_password must be passed in the order of example above.

With mysq_select_db you ask the permission to read/write on database name, with previous credentials.
Both functions are native PHP functions, and they can perform only a TRUE or FALSE, no database data is exchanged yet.