Seichleon » Tutorial http://seich.martianwabbit.com Legendarido... Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:27:45 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 How PHP works http://seich.martianwabbit.com/how-php-works/ http://seich.martianwabbit.com/how-php-works/#comments Mon, 22 Feb 2010 03:19:47 +0000 Seich http://seich.martianwabbit.com/?p=198 Okay, this won’t be of much help to everyone but those following my new screencast series about PHP.  I’ll be going over the basics and I thought that this would be the best place to start on. “How PHP works” shows in about a minute the basic functionality of PHP. I’ll be going over setting PHP up in your PC afterwards and then I’ll start showing the basics of PHP. Hopefully this screencast series will give me a reason to be more active on my blog.

]]> http://seich.martianwabbit.com/how-php-works/feed/ 0 Building a Simple Twitter PHP Class http://seich.martianwabbit.com/building-a-simple-twitter-php-class/ http://seich.martianwabbit.com/building-a-simple-twitter-php-class/#comments Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:01:55 +0000 Seich http://seich.martianwabbit.com/?p=149 preview

PHP is a very versatile scripting language. In this tutorial I will be explaining how to create a PHP class that will help you post and get information from a twitter account using the client URL library (cURL).

Tutorial Details

  • Program: PHP/Twitter API
  • Version: 1
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Estimated Completion Time: 10 minutes

Step 1 – Starting up

Let’s begin. First, we will create a file named twit.php which will contain our class. Once created, we declare our class and name it twit.

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<?php
class twit {//define class "twit"

}

Step 2 – The Constructor

We will now add our class’s public variables and its constructor. The constructor is a special function that will be run when we create a new instance of the class.

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<?php
class twit {
public $username;
public $password;

function __construct($username, $password) {
$this->username = $username;
$this->password = $password;
}
}

Now we have defined the two variables that we will be using throughout the class. These will be defined when a new instance of the class is created, thanks to our __construct method.

Step 3 – Posting

It’s time to define our first method.

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<?php
class twit {
public $username;
public $password;

function __construct($username, $password) {
$this->username = $username;
$this->password = $password;
}
function postStatus($tweet) {
$ch = curl_init();//initiate curl session.
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://www.twitter.com/statuses/update.xml');//set URL to connect to.
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);//set mode to POST.
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "status=".urlencode($tweet));//send status information.
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "$this->username:$this->password");//send login information.

$result = curl_exec($ch);//execute curl session.
$http_status = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);//get response code.

if ($http_status == 200) {//200 means the post was succesful.
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
curl_close($ch);//close curl connection.
}
}

The postStatus method will be used to tweet directly to our account, to achieve this we use the cURL to post using twitter’s api. The setup is simple and configured as specified on the twitter api page. The method returns true or false based upon the response code sent back from twitter this, makes the class easier to be used within another page in order to display success/error messages or trigger some other action.

Let’s try our class and see what we have so far.
Create another php file and try the following code in it. Make sure to replace USER and PASSWORD with your twitter username and password.

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<?php
require("twit.php");

$twitter = new twit("USER", "PASSWORD");//replace these
if($twitter->postStatus("Test!")){
echo("Status Posted!");
}else{
echo("There was an error when posting the status to twitter.");
}
?>

If everything is working correctly you should see the post on your twitter account and it should appear as posted through the API.

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Step 4 – Getting

Finally, we will define our second and last method which, is going to help us get the information of our last twitter status.

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<?php
class twit {
public $username;
public $password;

function __construct($username, $password) {
$this->username = $username;
$this->password = $password;
}
function postStatus($tweet) {
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://www.twitter.com/statuses/update.xml');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "status=".urlencode($tweet));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "$this->username:$this->password");

$result = curl_exec($ch);
$http_status = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);

if ($http_status == 200) {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
curl_close($ch);
}
function getStatus() {
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/'.$this->username.'.xml');//set url to the user's timeline.
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "$this->username:$this->password");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION, CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 5);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_GET, 1);//set mode to get.

$result = curl_exec($ch);
$http_status = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);

curl_close($ch);

if ($http_status != 200) {
return null;
}

$resultArray = simplexml_load_string($result);//load the result into a simplexml object.
return $resultArray->status;//return object.
}
}

This time we will be using the cURL’s get option, which will allow us to get the information from the twitter server.
In this method I am using a simplexml object to make the task of managing information easier, since we will be receiving a lot of data from the server.

Let’s try the new method out! Create a new PHP file and insert the following code into it. Once again, make sure to replace USER and PASSWORD with your corresponding twitter username and password.

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<?php
require("twit.php");

$twitter = new twit("USER", "PASSWORD");//replace these
$tweeter2 = $tweeter->getStatus();
var_dump($tweeter2);

?>
2

You will get a lot of data, but since it’s stored in a simplexml object it is quite easy to manipulate it.
For example, if you wanted to get the text from your last post you could use:

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<?php
require("twit.php");

$tweeter = new twit("Seich", "password");
echo($tweeter->getStatus()->text);

?>

Which would echo whatever you wrote in your last update. Using this same method you can access all of the data provided.

Conclusion

Twitter’s API is quite easy to manipulate. It is a very repetitive task though, so an object-oriented approach can help us making the process easier. Using these two methods as example, you should be able to expand the class or create your own approach to it. Nevertheless you should now be able to play with the Twitter API and manipulate Twitter’s data.

Further reading

I would recommend reading these in order to get a deeper view of what we covered in this tutorial.

]]> http://seich.martianwabbit.com/building-a-simple-twitter-php-class/feed/ 3 Basic of $_GET variables (PHP) http://seich.martianwabbit.com/basic-of-_get-variables-php/ http://seich.martianwabbit.com/basic-of-_get-variables-php/#comments Sat, 06 Jun 2009 08:30:55 +0000 Seich http://seich.martianwabbit.com/?p=96 Hello everyone, today I am posting a tutorial on the basic usage of the $_GET super variable in php. This tutorial was originally posted at the MWPS community forums, which almost never is read so I figured that this would be a better place for it to be. It goes through the basics of the $_GET variable and some basic usage examples.

First, I know most people will ask, especially if you are new with PHP, what’s so special about the $_GET Variable?

Well, there’s something really special about this variable, it allows you to get information directly from the url…. yeah that’s right there’s a way to get fast user input directly from the url no forms or anything, it doesn’t necessarily needs to be user input it can also be a script leaving behind some variables for the next script and many other uses you will be able to figure out by yourself after you are done with this tutorial…. the most know use for is used on most CMS and simple page scripts. Still figuring out how does it work? I am pretty sure you will recognize how it works with this example:

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http://www.martianwabbit.com/page.php?id=home

In the above example you can see something odd about the url the “?id=home” after the file name well that’s exactly where your $_GET variables are gotten from. I guess some of you will just think of the thousands of possibilities this opens and, how you can use it to improve your scripts.
But how do I get the information stored on the “?id=home”?
That’s simple first of you need to know that the above its saying that “id” equals “home” just as a variable $x = y;. Now that you know what it means you should be able to get the information easily.
Well to use that information it is recommended that you assign a variable with it so, you could use it directly but you won’t be able to edit it along the script also this helps making it easier to call and read. This is how it works:

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$id = $_GET['id'];

simple isn’t it? now you can call the variable using $id and you will see how it gets whatever text it’s on the url.
a simple way to see this in action is making a simple script:

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<?php
//set $id 's value to whatever is contained on the url.
$id = $_GET['id'];
//echo the variable's value.
echo("$id");
?>

In the above example we set $id with the value that came with url and then we echo ‘ed it.
This is the simplified basics behind this variable but you can use this for a multitude of things. Before we go on to the “multitude of things” I want to show you how to get multiple values from a single url, yep that’s right you aren’t limited to 1 variable after the ?, you are limited….well you are not limited on the number of values you can get from the url like this.
But how do I get multiple values from the url do I separate them with a comma or what?
well in fact you could separate them with a comma but that’s the less practical way the best way is to add additional values to the url like this:

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http://www.martianwabbit.com/page.php?id=20&page=2

Noticed how I added an additional variable and value there? yeah I simply added a &(meaning “and”) and added an additional Name = Value, please notice that there is no additional ? after the &.
ok now I have two variables to play with but how do I manipulate both of them?
well this simple example can explain it better than what I could:

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<?php
$id = $_GET['id'];
$page = $_GET['page'];

echo("you are looking for $id's page $page");

?>

see how simple it is? if the file above was named “page.php” and I typed in:

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http://www.martianwabbit.com/page.php?id=home&page=2

In the browser I would get this:

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you are looking for home's page 2

Easy right? well this is how you add multiple variable names and values through the url.
Now what? What can I do with all this information I just learned? well, I decided to include a little practical example.

Remember that I mentioned that this is commonly used in simple page systems? Well this is how it’s done:
Imagine you want to have a specific page style to be used to display some articles you could make a new HTML page for each article (which would make you waste time and effort on ) or you could use a dynamic page to grab whatever page is requested from the url and simply append the contents to the page style you want to use.
If you voted for the second option this is a way of doing it, it might get a little out of the scope of the tutorial but its only to illustrate a use for it:
First, we need to make sure a value is always set, we going to use the variable $id and $page to specify a page name($id) and a page number($page). to make sure that there’s a variable value always not only when it’s specified on the url (i.e. to display a homepage) we do a simple check !isset (means “is not set”) if this is true then a default value is used. this is how it should look like:

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<?php
//we set a default value in case no page is being looked for.
if(!isset($_GET['id'])){
//in case no file is being looked up.
$id = "Home";
}else{
//if theres a value.
$id = $_GET['id'];
}
//we set a default value in case no page number is specified.
if(!isset($_GET['page'])){
$page = "1";
}else{
//if theres a value look for it.
$page = $_GET['id'];
}
?>

ok now we are sure the variable is always there next thing we need is the html, our “template” so we make a simple html template mine looks like this:

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<html>
<title></title>
</html>
<body>
</body>

That’s enough for it to work. Okay, now it’s time to add some content. so we add a include into the body:

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<html>
<title></title>
</html>
<body>
<?php include("pages/$id-$page.php"); ?>
</body>

ok that should work perfectly but let’s add some additional stuff to make it look nicer and more dynamic… we can add a title dynamically getting it from the page name:

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<html>
<title><?php echo("$id"); ?></title>
</html>
<body>
<?php include("pages/$id-$page.php"); ?>
</body>

ok our tile is dynamically changed but this script is still missing some stuff for it to be practical we will add a file check before including the content and an error in case the file doesn’t exist:

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<html>
<head>
<title><?php echo("$id"); ?></title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
//make sure file exists before attempting to open it.
if(file_exists("pages/$id-$page.php")){
//if it exists open the file.
include("pages/$id-$page.php");
}else{
//in case file doesn't exist throw a error.
echo("file not found");
}
?>
</body>

now it’s done you should have this or something quite similar to it:

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<?php
//By Seich(http://martianwabbit.com/)
//we set a default value in case no page is being looked for.
if(!isset($_GET['id'])){
//in case no file is being looked up.
$id = "Home";
}else{
//if theres a value.
$id = $_GET['id'];
}
//we set a default value in case no page number is specified.
if(!isset($_GET['page'])){
$page = "1";
}else{
//if theres a value look for it.
$page = $_GET['id'];
}
?>
<html>
<!--html part-->
<head>
<!--set title dynamically depending on what file is being read.-->
<title><?php echo("$id"); ?></title>
</head>
<body>
<!--Change body Dynamically depending on the content-->
<?php
//make sure file exists before attempting to open it.
if(file_exists("pages/$id-$page.php")){
//if it exists open the file.
include("pages/$id-$page.php");
}else{
//in case file does not exist throw a error.
echo("file not found");
}
?>
</body>

now you need to create a folder called “pages” in the same directory you have this script , files inside should be ending with a .php and should be named like this “name-number.php” starting from number 1 for it to work with no problems. With this you can now call the file using the a url.

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http://martianwabbit.com/page.php?id=name&page=2

this would open file : name-2.php in the body.
Okay, there you got it we have gone through all the basics behind the $_GET variable and now you know how special it is. You also know how practical it can be and how much time it can save you (as PHP can in general) and we also went through a practical example which can obviously be expanded as much as you want to make… idk… a full CMS or anything you can dream of…
Hope this helped you understand one important part behind PHP. if by any reason you don’t understand something or have a question or simply love it just leave a comment here.

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