Experiences on PHP Programming

How To Customize Main Layout of Error Pages in cakePHP

2011-02-08T17:48:00.000+08:00

To customize the contents of each cakePHP errors, you need to create the following pages in this folder /app/views/errors/
- error404.ctp
- missing_action.ctp
- missing_component_class.ctp
- missing_component_file.ctp
- missing_connection.ctp
- missing_controller.ctp
- missing_helper_class.ctp
- missing_helper_file.ctp
- missing_layout.ctp
- missing_model.ctp
- missing_scaffolddb.ctp
- missing_table.ctp
- missing_view.ctp
- private_action.ctp
- scaffold_error.ctp

But cakePHP is using /views/layouts/default.ctp as layout for these error pages like 404, missing controller, etc. To customize it, you need to create a file /app/app_error.php with the following contents:

class AppError extends ErrorHandler {
 
 function _outputMessage($template) {
  $this->controller->layout = 'error_template'; // /app/views/layouts/error_template.ctp
  parent::_outputMessage($template);
 }

}

And create a template file "error_template.ctp" in /app/views/layouts.

Hope this one helps.

Multiple DB in cakePHP

2010-10-04T14:33:00.000+08:00

In order to dynamically select DB during runtime in cakePHP is try to do it in Controller or in Model.

To do it in model:


class User extends AppModel {
 var $name = 'User';
 var $useDbConfig = 'general_syst';
 
 function __construct($id = false, $table = null, $ds = null) {
  $this->useDbConfig = 'db1';
  
  parent::__construct($id, $table, $ds);
 }
 
 // your code here
 // ....
}

When in controller


class Users extends AppController {
 
 function action1(){
  $this->User->useDbConfig = 'db1';
  
  $users = $this->User->find('all');
  
  // your code here
  // ....
 }
 
}

Hope this one helps.

Cannot send session cache limiter

2009-11-24T11:22:00.003+08:00

Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent

If you encounter the above problem, try to set the encoding from UTF-8. UTF-8 encoidng add some characters before <?php

Access SimpleXMLElement Object Attributes

2009-06-30T04:45:00.004+08:00

PHP simplexml_load_string is a simple way to extract xml data into an object. If you have the following result from calling

$obj = simplexml_load_string($xml);


SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [@attributes] => Array
        (
            [status] => success
        )

    [auth] => SimpleXMLElement Object
        (
            [token] => dxoYGmwncmntH07jJGro5h0rxNfE2Ni6
            [seq] => 33
        )

)

you can access status by

$obj->attributes()->status

CakePHP 1.2 Versatile Model find('list')

2009-04-18T03:50:00.011+08:00

Have you wanted to generate a list of options for your select but wanted the display field to be generated dynamically instead of using cakePHP find('list')?

This is the case.


MODEL
User hasOne Info

   User
       id
       username
       password
       manager_id
   Info
       id
       first_name
       last_name
       email
       sex

I wanted to generate a list of all Users displaying the first_name, last_name and sex. And I wanted the indexes to be generated with User.id and the display field with this format "Info.last_name, Info.first_name (Info.sex)". I have developed a function to override cakePHP $model->find.

In your app_model.php, you include this function:


class AppModel extends Model {
 
 function find($type, $options = array()) {
  switch ($type) {
            case 'superlist':
                if(!isset($options['format'])) {
                    $options['format'] = '';
                    for ($i=0; $i                     $options['format'] .= "%$i ";
                    }
                    $options['format'] = trim($options['format']);
                }
                
                if (isset($options['index'])){
                 preg_match('/(.*?)\.(.*)/', $options['index'], $match);
                 $index_alias = $match[1];
                 $index_field = $match[2];
                }else{
                 $index_alias = $this->alias;
                 $index_field = 'id';
                }

                $options['fields'] = array_merge(array("{$index_alias}.{$index_field}"), $options['fields']);
                $list = $this->find('all', $options);
                
                $result = array();
                foreach ($list as $row){
                 $result[$row[$index_alias][$index_field]] = $options['format'];
                 
                 foreach ($options['fields'] as $index=>$field){
                  preg_match('/(.*?)\.(.*)/', $field, $match);
                  $field_alias = $match[1];
                  $field_field = $match[2];
                  
                  $result[$row[$index_alias][$index_field]] = 
                   str_replace('%'.$index, $row[$field_alias][$field_field], 
                      $result[$row[$index_alias][$index_field]]);
                 }
                }
                
                return $result;
             break;                       

            default:              
                return parent::find($type, $options);
             break;
        }
    }

}

This is how you call the generate list function in your controller action.


// if you have not declared hasOne Info in User model, this is needed in order for User model generate Info model with it and you can pass condition on Info fields
$this->User->bindModel(
   array(
       'hasOne' => array('Info')
   )
);

$users = $this->User->find('superlist',
   array(
       'format' => '%3, %2 (%1)',
       'index' => 'User.id', // --> this is the default so you may not pass this option
       'fields' =>
           array(
               'Info.sex', // --> %1
               'Info.first_name', // --> %2
               'Info.last_name', // --> %3
           ),
       'order' => "Info.first_name, Info.last_name", // -- if you want to sort the option
       'condition' => "User.manager_id=2 AND Info.lastname='Smith'", // --> if you need some filtering
   )
);
$this->set(compact('users'));

$users array will contain the following structure:


array(
   'User.id1' => 'Info.last_name1, Info.first_name1 (Info.sex1)',
   'User.id2' => 'Info.last_name2, Info.first_name2 (Info.sex2)',
   'User.id3' => 'Info.last_name3, Info.first_name3 (Info.sex3)',
   .
   .
   .  
   'User.idN' => 'Info.last_nameN, Info.first_nameN (Info.sexN)',
)

Hope this post can help you in your future cakePHP 1.2 development.

Thanks to http://teknoid.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/findlist-with-three-or-combined-fields/ for giving me inspiration to develop this function.

CakePHP Routing With Parameters

2009-02-14T03:51:00.004+08:00

Anything you need to know with cakePHP routing can be found here.

Here is an example to illustrate routing with parameters.

/config/routes.php


Router::connect(
    '/:controller/:year/:month/:day',
    array('action' => 'index', 'day' => null),
    array(
        'year' => '[12][0-9]{3}',
        'month' => '(0[1-9]|1[012])',
        'day' => '(0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])'
    )
);

Parameters can be access like this:

/controllers/controller.php


function index(){
    // params is stored in $this->params
    $year = $this->params['year'];
    $month = $this->params['month'];
    $day = $this->params['day'];
    
    //
}

Increase Performance of Loop with Large Arrays

2009-02-13T23:35:00.003+08:00

In PHP, this is how we usually loop through arrays:


<?php
for ($i=0; $i<count($big_array); $i++){
 //
}
?>

Having this approach, program will try to count the $big_array every time it loops and it may cause some performance issues. To make it more efficient, we should code it this way:


<?php
for ($i=0, $n=count($big_array); $i<$n; $i++){
 //
}
?>

It does the counting during initialization only.

How to Route Admin Actions in CakePHP 1.2

2009-02-13T03:01:00.002+08:00

This is how to setup the routing:

Router::connect('/admin/:controller/:action/*', array('admin'=>'true','prefix'=>'admin', 'controller'=>'controller', 'action'=>'action'));

Indenting Tree List in Form Input Select using ' ' as spacer

2009-02-12T23:24:00.004+08:00

This is the scenario in cakePHP 1.2.

In your controller, you have an action:


function add() {
 ... 
 $categories = $this->Listing->Category->generatetreelist(null, null, null, '&nbsp;');
 $this->set(compact('categories','keywords','metros','states'));
}

where ' ' is your spacer.

Your view will have something like this:


...
echo $form->input('Category');
...

The above combination will display a drop down menu with the '&nsbp;' printed as '&nbsp' and not as a space. So how would you do it in cakePHP 1.2?

The key here is in the view file.

instead of the above statement, you should have this:


...
echo $form->input('Category', array('escape' => false));
...

Hope this one helps.

Merging Arrays Preserving the Numeric Keys

2009-01-29T00:30:00.004+08:00

Merging arrays like this:

<?php
$array1 = array();
$array2 = array(1 => "data");
$result = array_merge($array1, $array2);
?>

will result to:

Array
(
[0] => data
)

Don't forget that numeric keys will be renumbered!

If you want to completely preserve the arrays and just want to append them to each other (not overwriting the previous keys), use the + operator:

<?php
$array1 = array();
$array2 = array(1 => "data");
$result = $array1 + $array2;
?>

The numeric key will be preserved and thus the association remains.

Array
(
[1] => data
)

Source: http://php.net/array_merge

Empty Options for cakePHP 1.2

2009-01-27T05:07:00.005+08:00

$options['empty'], if set to true, forces the input to remain empty.

When passed to a select list, this creates a blank option with an empty value in your drop down list. If you want to have a empty value with text displayed instead of just a blank option, pass in a string to empty.

<?php echo $form->input('field', array('options' => array(1,2,3,4,5), 'empty' => '(choose one)')); ?>

Source: http://book.cakephp.org/view/201/options-empty

How to Include Javascript File in Cake PHP

2009-01-27T02:52:00.001+08:00

If you want to use a Javascript file, you usually reference it in the head section of your layout:


<head>
    <?php echo $javascript->link('script.js'); ?>
</head>

But sometimes you want to use a certain Javascript file only in one view. Then it doesn’t make sense to reference it in the layout. You could take the PHP statement from above and place it in your view, that will work. But it is not a clean solution as the Javascript reference is placed somewhere in the middle of the generated HTML code.

Fortunately, CakePHP 1.2 allows you to define a reference to a Javascript file which is then added to the head section of the generated HTML code. For this purpose the variable $scripts_for_layout has to be added to the layout:


<head>
    <?php echo $scripts_for_layout; ?>
</head>

In the view you can now link to the Javascript file with:

$javascript->link('script.js', false);

Notice the second parameter. Set it to false to tell cake to put the reference in $scripts_for_layout variable in the layout file.

Source: http://cakebaker.42dh.com/2007/02/21/referencing-javascript-files/

PHP Ternary Operator

2009-01-27T02:42:00.002+08:00

Consider the following snippet of code:


if (condition){
 variable = value1;
}else{
 variable = value2;
}

Instead of doing that way, we can just simply do it like this:

variable = condition ? value1 : value2;

Another variation of using the ternary operator would be from:


if (condition){
 echo "something1";
}else{
 echo "something2";
}

And it can be expressed like:

echo condition ? "something1": "something2";

You can also nest the condition:

variable = cond0 ? (cond1 ? value1.1 : value1.2) : (cond2 ? value2.1 : value2.2);

Just use your imagination on how to use this form.