PHP

CakePHP / Personal / PHP — 1 Comment
2
Feb 12

CakePHP 2 – Hashing passwords before saving.

A quick gotcha here that leverages CakePHP’s inbuilt utilities to hash data before you commit it to the database.

The beauty of this method is that you can still run all your validation checks and then hash the data between validation and saving. Why is that important? Consider you have a rule that says a password should be no more than 15 characters. When you hash it, it would break the rule and your record would never save.

All you have to do is hash your fields in the beforeSave function of your model like this example from a User Model:


public function beforeSave() {
App::uses('Utitlity','Security');
if(!empty($this->data['User']['password'])) {
$this->data['User']['password'] = Security::hash($this->data['User']['password']);
}
return true;
}

One import aspect of this is to always return true. If you don’t your record will NEVER save.

CakePHP / PHP / prototyping / Web Development — 4 Comments
17
Jun 11

Using CakePHP without a database

I enjoy CakePHP’s structure and methods so much that I have started  using it for my non-database driven projects and for prototyping big projects.

However, when no database is present CakePHP throws a warning that it can’t connect to the database. The solution is to create a dummy database connection to convince CakePHP that all is ok. And, it’s as simple as this:

Create a new folder app/models/datasources/dbo

Create a new file at app/models/datasources/dbo/dbo_dummy_db.php and add the following:

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<?php   
    class DboDummyDb extends DboSource {         
                 function connect()  {                
                          $this->connected = true;
                          return $this->connected;
                  }
            }

In your app/config/database.php find the default connection array – a line that starts $default = array
and replace the line for the driver from
'driver' => 'mysql',
to
'driver' => 'dummy_db',

And that’s all there is to using CakePHP without a database.

CakePHP / PHP / Web Development — 2 Comments
27
Nov 09

A workaround for the CakePHP alphaNumeric issue

Recently whilst building a CakePHP app on a shiny new server I noticed some unexpected behaviour when using an alphaNumeric rule to validate a model. Whatever I passed into the model returned false. That is to say that even a valid alphanumeric string threw up an exception. (if you haven’t already dived into CakePHP, you should – it’s a rapid development framework based on MVC.)

The issue seems to be tied to PHP 5.1.2 and the way regular expressions are handled, however it seems the it may appear in other configurations too. Before I get to a workaround, note I haven’t levelled the “bug” word at either PHP nor CakePHP – for all I know it could be a difference of opinion on how something should be handled. What I do know is that I would rather harness CakePHP’s flexibility to create custom model rules than try upgrading my current live server PHP installation.

Here is an example of how you should be able to implement the alphaNumeric rule using validation in CakePHP based on a simpliefied model called “User”:
class User extends AppModel

{
var $name = 'User';
var $helpers = array('Form');
var $validate = array(
'username' => array(
'loginRule-1' => array(
'rule' => 'alphaNumeric',
'last' => true,
'message' => 'Only letters and numbers allowed'
));
}

The rule in bold italics above is the one that doesn’t always work. However this can be easily rectified with a custom rule built on a regular expression seeking out valid alphanumeric strings.

To achieve this the alphaNumeric rule just needs to be replaced with this:

"rule" => array('custom', '/^[a-z0-9]*$/i'),

Problem solved.

Ajax / Javascript / jQuery / PHP / User Interface / Web Development — 9 Comments
7
Dec 08

Drag and drop reordering of database fields (sortables) with jQuery

This tutorial explains how to display a list of items from a database that can be reordered in real time by dragging and dropping, using the jQuery library. Moreover, no page reload is required on every reorder. If you want a bigger introduction to why you may want to do this I suggest reading my tutorial on how to achieve the same functionality using scriptaculous.

Previously I have explained how to achieve this in Scriptaculous and Mootools.

Continue reading →

Ajax / Javascript / PHP / Scriptaculous / User Interface / Web Development — 80 Comments
9
Mar 08

Autocompletion with Scriptaculous and Ajax.

Demo here | Download sample files

This tutorial supercedes my previous turtorial on autocompletion by adding further tips and tricks to make your autocompletion a much better experience for your site users The tutorial is structured in the following way:

  1. Introduction: What is autocompletion and why use it?
  2. How it works.
  3. Getting scriptaculous and building the form.
  4. Building the autocomplete server.
  5. Passing back an id to our form.

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PHP / User Interface / Web Development — No Comments
9
Mar 06

Alternating table row colours in PHP.

Recently I have been tinkering with Ruby on Rails and I came across a rather nice method of alternating row colours using only two lines of code and a couple of CSS rules. I have been using this method in my PHP ever since and never looked back. This is a neat trick to alternate row colors on a table using PHP.

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