I have always been jealous of RoR but I did not to switch and kill my passion to PHP at the same time there was no PHP framework that satisfy my needs to RAD so I stopped looking until recently I was introduce to Symfony Framework but didn’t had the time to dig much into it as I’m not full time programmer anymore but I kept an eye on it and kept digging it as a Todo.

Couple of days ago I got The Definitive Guide to Symfony and unlike many other technical books it’s authored by the author of the framework and the framework documenter which is a great plus when buying a technical book.

If you are not used to MVC frameworks then you should understand that learning curve in Symfony is a pain that worth going through and it will heal any pain you used to get when developing without a framework, nevertheless the guide book makes it way easier, the book is well written in an easy language

I will keep you update as I’m reading the book.

Tags: time programmer, learning curve, easy language, ror, definitive guide, technical books, couple of days, full time, passion, symfony

©2012 Syntux the geek. All Rights Reserved.

A few days ago I was asked to develop a simple script for a solidarity campaign. The idea is that people send their photos as attachements to some email. The script would download all images attached and insert a record for that in the database.

I got introduced to eZ components during my last visit to Norway to attend the eZ systems conference. I decided to give it a shot, and oh boy it’s just amazing, probably the cleanest and simplest API ever.

I managed to find the package “Mail”:

The components allows you construct Mail messages conforming to the RFCs. It has support for attachments, multipart messages and HTML mail. It also interfaces with SMTP to send the e-mail. Reading and parsing mail messages comes in version 1.1.

The package is well documented and includes many examples. Here’s the script I ended up writing (edited version):

[coolcode lang="php"]
< ?php
define( 'PHOTOS_DIR', 'email_photos/' );
define( 'FILE_PARSED_MAILS', '.fpm' );

require_once 'Base/src/base.php';
function __autoload( $className )
{
ezcBase::autoload( $className );
}

//get the list of emails that we alread processed
$parsedEmailsIds = array();
$parsedEmailsIds = @unserialize( file_get_contents(FILE_PARSED_MAILS) );

if( 'array' != gettype($parsedEmailsIds) ){
$parsedEmailsIds = array();
}

$pop3 = new ezcMailPop3Transport( 'mail.example.org' );
$pop3->authenticate( ‘username’, ‘password’ );

//get the list of emails from the server
$severEmailsIds = $pop3->listUniqueIdentifiers();
$emailsToFetch = array_diff($severEmailsIds, $parsedEmailsIds);
if( !count($emailsToFetch) ){
//no emails to get!
exit;
}

$set = $pop3->fetchAll(false, $emailsToFetch );
$parser = new ezcMailParser();
$parser->setTmpDir( ‘tmp/’ );
$mails = $parser->parseMail( $set );

foreach ( $mails as $mail )
{

//Get email parts
foreach( $mail->body->getParts() as $part ){
if( get_class($part) == ‘ezcMailFile’ ){

//get the destination file name after some cleanups
$fileName = nameToSafe( basename($part->fileName) );

//the new destintation filename, this function makes sure we get a unique file name everytime
$destFileName = PHOTOS_DIR . nameToSeq(PHOTOS_DIR,$fileName);

rename( $part->fileName, $destFileName );

}

//after we’re done, we need to update the file that stores the list of parsed emails
file_put_contents( FILE_PARSED_MAILS, serialize( $severEmailsIds ) );

?>

[/coolcode]

I’m sure there’s a better way to get the new emails only, probably with var_export()

Note: The only problem I faced, which is VERY strange, is the ability to fetch a single email or list of emails. Surprisingly, the API didn’t provide such feature. I did an ugly hack to “Mail/transports/pop3/pop3_transport.php” to function fetchAll(), I should have created another function, but I was in a hurry. Here’s the modified version:

[coolcode lang="php"]
/**
* @throws ezcMailTransportException if the mail could not be retrieved.
* @param bool $deleteFromServer
* @param array $messages
* @return ezcMailParserSet
*/
public function fetchAll( $deleteFromServer = false, $messages = null )
{
if( !isset($messages) ){
$message = $this->listMessages();
}
return new ezcMailPop3Set( $this->connection, array_keys( $messages ), $deleteFromServer );
}

[/coolcode]

Tags: package mail, mail body, solidarity campaign, mail messages, multipart messages, ez systems, attachements, edited version, fpm, rfcs, e mail, parsing, smtp, array, few days, attachments, email, norway, fi, images

©2012 Syntux the geek. All Rights Reserved.

The Zend Framework community has released another preview release adding new components into the core, increasing the number of nascent incubator components, and now providing the manual in 10 languages. Along with the 0.1.4 release comes a new end-user community wiki, development wiki, issue tracker, changeset browser, and other infrastructure changes to help the community track the progress and be involved in the project.

A special ?Thanks? goes out to all contributors for both the release and working through the infrastructure changes for the working project. We received a great number of contributions for code, documentation, translations, testing, feedback and help migrating from our old systems to the new.

The release can be downloaded from the Zend Framework Web Site.

Tags: infrastructure changes, zend framework, issue tracker, preview release, code documentation, special thanks, release 1, translations, languages

©2012 Syntux the geek. All Rights Reserved.

Anice piece of text by Nicholas Chase on IBM DeveloperWorks on the other hand it’s disappointing piece of text because it’s good but incomplete, waiting for the part two.

IBM/DeveloperWorks We programmers are a paradoxically lazy lot. By that, I mean that we will spend hours, even days, creating something that allows us to complete a task in 30 seconds instead of five minutes. So perhaps the creation of the Zend Framework isn’t much of a surprise. You mean you haven’t heard of the Zend Framework? Don’t worry — you will. This article gives you a high-level view of the Zend Framework, explaining its general concepts and preparing you for the rest of this “Understanding the Zend Framework” series, which goes into the details by chronicling the creation of a new online RSS/Atom feed reader. We won’t do much coding in this article, but for the rest of the series, you should be familiar with PHP.

Tags: ibm developerworks, nicholas chase, atom feed reader, php tags, zend framework, five minutes, programmers, surprise

©2012 Syntux the geek. All Rights Reserved.