Archive for php

Getting XDebug to work with PHP and Eclipse

I’m used to .net, so when I started coding in PHP, I really missed the remote debugging features that come with Visual Studio (being able to step through a web application). I was also looking for a good, free IDE.  I found the answers in eclipse and xdebug.  If your’e looking for the same thing, here are some starters:

Here are the steps to follow:

1. Download XAMPP or install and configure Apache, PHP, MySql.

Xampp is one package that installs and configures apache, php and mysql.  Very easy to set up a development environment.  Just download and run the exe specific to your  environment.

2. Download Eclipse Classic
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
Eclipse is an IDE (i.e. code editor on steroids).  Download and install it.  Open Eclipse.  When it asks, make your workspace the xampp directory (i.e. c:\xamp\htdocs\mysite)

3. Download PDT by following these instructions

http://wiki.eclipse.org/PDT/Installation

4. Download the xdebug dll
http://www.xdebug.org/download.php
Follow the instructions here: http://www.xdebug.org/docs/install.  The difficult thing for me was finding the right version to install and making sure that the entries in the php.ini were correct.  To test whether the correct version is installed, create a page with phpinfo.  If there’s an xdebug section, you’re good to go.

5. Instructions on putting it all together:
http://devzone.zend.com/article/2930

I hope this helps someone else.  I spent a good afternoon trying to piece all of this together.  Once you’ve gone through these steps

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January 26, 2010 · Filed under php, xdebug

Create a Simple JSON Web Service with PHP and JQuery

Here’s what you need to get started creating a simple JSON Web Service with PHP and JQuery. You’ll need to download JQuery and include it in your page as I’ve done.

The HTML page just has a couple of links that are hooked up to JQuery methods which post values to a PHP page.

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<html>
 
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8">
<script src="jquery-1.3.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
 
<script type="text/javascript">
 
        $(document).ready(function () {  //The DOM is now loaded and can be manipulated.
 
          //Wire up the divs to do stuff whenclicked
          $("#CallAddPost").click(function () {
              callAddPost();
          });
 
 
          $("#CallMultiplyAjax").click(function () {
              callMultiplyAjax();
          });
 
          //Option1: Use JQuery Post Method. Two Parameters. First Parameter is
          //the functionName.  Second Parameter is a json-formatted string
          function callAddPost(){
                   $.post("jsontest.php",
                   {functionName: 'add',params:'{"first":8, "second":2}'},
                   function(data){
                       alert(data);
  	         }
              );
          }
 
          //Option 2: Use JQuery Ajax Method.
            function callMultiplyAjax(){
            $.ajax({
                  url: "jsontest.php",
                  global: false,
                  type: "POST",
                  data: {functionName : "multiply",params:'{"first":8, "second":2}'},
                  dataType: "html",
                  success: function(data){
                     alert(data);
                  }
               }
            );
          }
 
        });// //End Document Ready
 
</script>
 
</head>
 
<body>
    <a href="#" id="CallAddPost">Call Add Post</a>
    <a href="#" id="CallMultiplyAjax">Call Multiply Ajax</a>
</body>
 
 
</html>

The PHP Script reads the values posted from the HTML page and calls one of two methods based on which method is specified in the POST.

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<?php
 
function add($par) {
    $result = 0;
    //You see we can loop through the parameters irrespective of key
    foreach($par as $key=>$val) {
        $result += $val;
    }
    return array("result"=>$result);
}
 
function multiply($par) {
    //Here we reference the variables in the array by their keys
    $result = $par['first'] * $par['second'];
    return array("result"=>$result);
}
 
$postmethod = $_POST["functionName"];  //Gets the 'functionName' string value from the POSTed json
$params = $_POST["params"];    //Gets the 'params' string value from the POSTed json
 
//Turn the json string of parameters into an associative array
$params = json_decode($params,true); //true means we're creating an array (not an object)
 
$functionCall = $postmethod."(\$params);";
eval("\$retObj=".$functionCall.";");
 
//Echo sends the result back to the page
 
echo $retObj['result'];  //If I just want to return the result, I don't have to json encode it
//Otherwise, if I want to return the array, I just use the json_encode method to turn the array into JSON
?>

Here are some useful links:
http://docs.jquery.com/Ajax
http://php.net/manual/en/function.json-encode.php
http://php.net/manual/en/function.json-decode.php

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November 26, 2009 · Filed under jquery, php