PHP Tutorials
PHP Function: Remove a Query String Key=>Value
I was recently coding a website which relied heavily on query string variables. It was absolutely imperative that I keep the query string clean and not duplicate keys. I needed to find a PHP function that would allow me to remove keys (and their values) easily and reliably. Enter a PHP function I found at Added Bytes:
Using the GitHub API and PHP to Get Repository Information
GitHub is an awesome place to host your open source project code. MooTools, Prototype, and jQuery all use GitHub. As you probably know, the MooTools Forge requires your plugins be hosted on GitHub. The only problem with hosting all my MooTools plugins is that I lose traffic when I want people to see my code. Problem solved: use PHP, the GitHub API, and PHP Markdown to display files of my choice on my website.
Add Events to the PHP Calendar
In a previous blog post I detailed how to create a basic calendar using PHP and then showed you how to add controls to that calendar. This post will detail how you may efficiently pull events from a MySQL table and display those events within the calendar.
Simple PHP Caching and Content Retrieval Function
One way to make your website exponentially faster is by caching both remote and internal requests. Why request your RSS subscriber count from FeedBurner more than once a day if that count is calculated once per day? Why hit your database on each page load if that content rarely changes? I've created a primitive request-and-cache function for PHP that checks for fresh content in the cache and retrieves content from a source if fresh content isn't available.
Create PHP Classes with Dynamic Functions
As you have probably found out, when I see something interesting I don't know how to do, my only goal is to figure out how to do it. Thus is the case with PHP classes featuring dynamic methods based on database records (or arrays). I took some time to figure out how it was done.
Fix WordPress CRONs on Media Temple (dv) Servers
When I switched from Dreamhost shared hosting to Media Temple (dv) server hosting, I had a hell of a time trying to figure out why CRONs weren't working correctly on the website. I had database backups being sent via CRON jobs so making sure CRONs were working was imperative. What's great is that the way to make these Wordpress CRONs work was by...setting up a CRON.
Get a URL’s Reddit Score Using PHP and JSON
Since we can see Digg turning more into a funny-pic-and-vid site each day, I've turned my attention to Reddit. Reddit just seems more controlled and programmer-friendly. Since I have respect for Reddit I thought I'd put together a quick tutorial on how you can retrieve a URL's Reddit score using PHP.
Record Text Selections Using MooTools or jQuery AJAX
One technique I'm seeing more and more these days (CNNSI.com, for example) is AJAX recording of selected text. It makes sense — if you detect users selecting the terms over and over again, you can probably assume your visitors are searching that term on Google, Yahoo, etc. I've duplicated this functionality using my favorite JavaScript library, MooTools, and another JavaScript library, jQuery.
Dynamically Create Charts Using jQuery Flot and Google Analytics
Earlier in the week I published a popular article titled Dynamically Create Charts Using MooTools MilkChart and Google Analytics. My post showed you how to use MooTools MilkChart and a splash of PHP to create beautiful charts of Google Analytics data. I was interested in seeing what jQuery had to offer in the charting department. jQuery Flot is what I found.
Dynamically Create Charts Using MooTools MilkChart and Google Analytics
The prospect of creating graphics charts with JavaScript is exciting. It's also the perfect use of JavaScript — creating non-essential features with unobtrusive scripting. I've created a mix of PHP (the Analytics class), HTML, and MooTools JavaScript that will connect to Google Analytics, create an HTML table with the statistics for a given month, and use MooTools MilkChart to colorfully chart them out.