Tag: PHP

Calling a DLL with PHP

So here’s a quick post on calling dll’s in Windows using php. I have a dll that encrypts data in a certain format that we need for another process. So I need to pass the dll a string and it returns the encrypted string back.

I tried calling the dll using the COM class in code and was having issues until I realized I have to register the dll in windows first before I can call it using the COM class. To register a dll in windows you do the following in your command line:

REGSVR32 MyStuff.dll

Now that the dll is registered you can do the following to start accessing the dll:

$my_dll = new COM('MyStuff.Functions');

MyStuff is the dll name an/or id and Functions is the object inside the dll that we want to use. Now I call the method I need and pass the parameters:

$encrypted_text = null;
$input = 'This needs to be encrypted.';
$my_dll->EncryptString($input, $encrypted_text );

This is pretty much it. We instantiate the COM class with the dll and function I want. Then I call the method in the dll passing my text and it returns into my $encrypted_text var the encrypted text. I can now do my next process with the encrypted text like:

print $encrypted_text;

Dynamic PHP Images Tutorial

So I decided to play around with creating a dynamic php image to see how much work was involved and it’s actually pretty easy to do. In my case I wanted to solve the following problem.

I have a trip planned for a weekend coming up and I keep wanting to see what the weather is going to be like for that weekend. It seems everyday the weather.com forecast changes so I keep checking it on a daily basis. My options are

  1. go to the weather.com website, search for the zip code, then select view 10 day forecast or 
  2. create a quick and easy automated way of looking for this information as a graphic. 

Of course, I picked the latter. Here’s what we are about to create:


Continue reading “Dynamic PHP Images Tutorial”

Using MySQL Stored Procedures with PHP mysql/mysqli/pdo

Wondering how to use stored procedures with PHP and MySQL? So was I and here’s what I’ve learned. In this tutorial I’ll explain how to use PHP (I’m using 5.2.6) to call MySQL (I’m using 5.0.2) stored procedures using the following database extensions:

First we need to setup our enviroment which consists of a new database with one table and two stored procedures. In your db tool of choice (I’ll be using the MySQL Query Browser) create a new database named test. After you create the new database, make sure to add a user called example with password example to the database and give it read access.

CREATE DATABASE `test`;

Now create the table users:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `test`.`users`;
CREATE TABLE  `test`.`users` (
`users_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
`first_name` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
`last_name` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY  (`users_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

Continue reading “Using MySQL Stored Procedures with PHP mysql/mysqli/pdo”

Random image from folder – rotating banner in php

So the other day someone was looking for a quick php script that would load a random image from a folder (rotating banner script) and display it on their website. There are already a ton of scripts out there that do this but of course, this was an excuse to build something for fun. So, I decided to create a script that would do just this but with the least amount of code lines still keeping it efficient (again, just for fun). This is what I came up with:

<?php
$files = @opendir($dir=trim($_REQUEST['dir'])) or die('Not Valid');
while($file = readdir($files)) preg_match('/(.png)|(.gif)|(.jpg)/i',$file) ?
        $images[] = array($file,substr($file,strlen($file)-3)) : null;
count($images) ? header('Content-type: image/'.$images[$id=rand(0,count($images)-1)][1]) :
        die('Not Valid');
print file_get_contents($dir.(substr($dir,strlen($dir)-1)!='/'?'/':null).$images[$id][0]);
?>

Continue reading “Random image from folder – rotating banner in php”

PHP – Copying x Files to n Folders

So a co-worker needed to find a way of coping a few files (10 files) to a bunch of folders if the files weren’t already present. Instead of doing a manual copy paste in Windows I created this code to do the above. If anyone needs to do something similar feel free to use this code. Pretty much all is does is create an array with all the folders where this PHP file is being run (this is the root where the bunch of folders reside). Then it creates another array of files – these are the files that we need to copy to all the folders. This array is created by looking in the templates folder and adding each file to the array.

The ‘foldersOnly’ function gets the array from scandir() and cleans it up. It removes the ‘.’, ‘..’, and a couple Dreamweaver folders like ‘_notes’ and another one I can remember. The new array returns only the folders we want to work with. The ‘filesOnly’ gets the array from the PHP function scandir() and returns only the files in that folder. Once we have our arrays we are ready to start.

We are going to loop for each folder and inside each folder look for each file. We check to see if the file is in the folder, if so we do nothing. If the file is not there, we copy it from the templates folder. This is pretty much it, once all the loops are done every folder should have the missing files. The code is below: Continue reading “PHP – Copying x Files to n Folders”

Uploader Phase 2 complete!

Here is a screen shot of the Uploader 0.1.0
Uploader 0.2.0

So today after work I decided it was about time to start working on phase two of my Uploader tool. Phase two consists of allowing me to drag and drop an image URL into the app so the app can then download the image to a folder in my server, create a thumbnail of this image, and update the WordPress database with information about the new image. The new image would then show up the next time a person visits my blog. If you notice, there is now a “Pics of Interest” section on the sidebar to the right of the page (similar to what people are doing with the flickr plugin). Every time I drag an image URL into the Uploader, the new image thumbnail will show in that area and if you click on the thumbnail you’ll see the full size image.

It was actually much easier than I originally thought to make this work. Technically, the Uploader already has the drag/drop functionality and already takes in a URL. The only extra AS3 code was a check to see if the URL was an image and if so call the PHP page with a code (I’m passing –@IMAGE@– to know it’s an image – it was just the first thing that came to my head) so then PHP knows this URL should be treated as an image not just a URL. If you remember, phase 1 for the Uploader allows a person to drag/drop a URL into the app so it creates a new link under the “Links of Interest”. Continue reading “Uploader Phase 2 complete!”

Uploader Phase 1

Here is a screen shot of the Uploader 0.1.0
Uploader 0.1.0

If you missed the previous post explaining what Uploader is go check it out.

So after having some fun with code I think I’m close to being done with phase 1.  I currently have a working beta (0.1.0) that I’m going to share with you all and explain what I’ve done in case anyone else wants to do something similar.  For the most part this was pretty straight forward.  There were a few hiccups here and there that I’ll try to address in this post. The link to the code will be at the end.

  Continue reading “Uploader Phase 1”

Uploader: Automating WordPress Links and File Uploads

So now that I’m starting to get my WordPress and new hosting server settled in I’m trying to think of what I can create to help me automate some tasks. One of the things I know I’ll be doing quite often is adding new links to the ‘Links of Interest’ on the front page.  I’ll also be uploading files/images to use on posts or to share with others but I’m too lazy to be ftping files constantly. So… time for a new tool!

The Uploader (yeah I know, I’m very creative) is going to do all the above for me. This will be a app I can keep running on my desktop somewhere and when I need to upload a file or link I can just drag it over and drop it in. The tool will then figure out what kind of item was dropped in and what to do with it.

Phase 1 will handle the links. The way the tool should work for links is the following.  I visit a page that I find interesting and want to add to the ‘Links of Interest’.  Instead of logging into WordPress to create it, I highlight the link from the address bar of the browser, drag it over to the app, and drop it. Now the app needs to figure out the <title> of that page to use as the name since we need a name and url to create a link. Once it has that, the tool will send the information to a PHP page which will do an insert to the links table in the WordPress DB.  

Phase 2 will deal with images and files. I may break phase 2 into two since I may do some stuff differently with images versus other files.  I’m thinking I may want to upload images, create a thumbnail, and insert to a DB to display in the front page the same way some people do with their flickr images. Other files I would just upload and store somewhere else.  I’ll give this more thought when I get to it.

I’m going to be writing the tool in Flash CS3/AIR with PHP in the backend using the current WordPress MySQL DB.  Stay tuned for updates!

EDIT:

Uploader Phase 1 completed 
Uploader Phase 2 completed