Send Authenticated POST Request with Zend_Http_Client

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There is an easy way to send requests with Zend_Http_Client either in GET and POST. Actually you can request not only with GET and POST methods, but with any other http request method.

$httpClient = new Zend_Http_Client('http://....');
// request via post
$response = $httpClient->request(Zend_Http_Client::POST);
// or get
$response = $httpClient->request(Zend_Http_Client::GET);

However the interesting and useful thing is that you can perform authenticated requests:

$httpClient = new Zend_Http_Client('http://username:password@example.com');
// or define it later
$httpClient = new Zend_Http_Client('http://example.com');
$httpClient->setAuth('username', 'password');

That’s an opportunity to send/receive authenticated POST requests.

$httpClient = new Zend_Http_Client('http://username:password@example.com');
// now post
$httpClient->request(Zend_Http_Client::POST);

Four Things to Know when Writing Comments

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How to write comments
Every developer has been learned from his teachers how important is to comment his source code. You should comment the classes, the methods, the logic, etc. However nobody explained how exactly to code with comments between the lines. Have you ever seen that

i++; // we increment i with one

That’s a shame! This doesn’t tell you anything, and what will happen if sometime later somebody sits in front of that code? He’d be amazed!

How To

In fact the task is not to determine what are the bad parts of not commenting the code, but how to overcome this. How to write comments. Here are some basic advices.

1. Think about the other developers

First of all the most important thing is to write comments with other programmers in mind. They should understand the logic of your code from your comments and not from the code itself.

2. Write in English

Even you’re not a native English speaker, and you English is not so good, it’s a must to write in English. This is really important when you work for a open source project when always there’s a big community around the project, you cannot be sure that everybody understands your language.

I know that this is difficult – also for me the English is not my native language, but that’s really a must. Once you start doing it, you’ll see that it’s not so difficult.

3. Comment the methods as a black box

Don’t write in a method comment what technique is used to achieve the result. It’s good to describe what the method does, not how it does it.

Bad example:

/**
 * returns $a + $b
 */
public function sum($a, $b) 
{
    return $a + $b;
}

Better:

/**
 * Returns the sum of two numbers
 * 
 * @param number $a
 * @param number $b
 * @returns number $a + $b
 */
public function sum($a, $b)
{
    return $a + $b;
}

4. Comment the logic, not the technical solution

When there’s a loop or a statement it’s useless to describe that this is a loop or statement, isn’t it? A better approach is to describe in a comment why you needed to implement this logic in such way.

Wrong:

...
$arr = array();
$i = 0;
 
// in a while loop we
// initialize every element with 0
while ($i < 100) {
    $arr[$i++] = 0; 
}
...

Better:

...
$arr = array();
$i = 0;
 
// we initialize an array of 0s
// to store the sorted elements
// on the first pass... etc, etc.
while ($i < 100) {
    $arr[$i++] = 0; 
}
...

Conclusion

In fact the most important thing is to write comments with other developers in mind. Tell the future developer of that code what’s in the code, and pray for mercy 😉

Friday Algorithms: Sorting a Set of Integers – Far Quicker than Quicksort!

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Yes! It’s really really fast, and it’s far quicker than the quicksort algorithm, which is considered as the fastest sorting algorithm in practice. However how it’s possible to be faster than the quicksort, which is the fastest algorithm?! Is that true? Actually it’s true, but only in few cases. It works with integers, you’ve to know the first and the last element from that set and you’ve to be sure that every element is unique

Imagine you’ve a set of numbers all of them greater than 1 and lesser than 1000. Of course you’re not suppose to have all of the integers between 1 and 1000, but only few of them – think of 500 numbers between 1 and 1000! Here’s important to note – that this is only an example, you can have far more than only few numbers between 1 and 1000 – what about the numbers between 1 and 1,000,000 – this is a big set, isn’t it.

The question is – if there are so many constraints, why should I use that algorithm instead of quicksort, or another sorting algorithm, that works with everything. The answer is clear – yes, you’d prefer quicksort if you’ve to sort some arbitrary data, but when it comes to integers, and you’ve, let’s say, 1,000,000 integers, my advice is – use this algorithm!

Sorting the Set

1. First Pass

First we have an unsorted array, but we know the minimum and maximum of the set.

an unsorted array of integers

On the first pass initialize an empty array with as many elements, as they are between the first and the last element of the set – for a set between 1 and 1000 – that will be an array with 1000 elements – each of which will be a zero in the beginning.

temporary array with 0 on every element

Than loop trough the set and for every element in the set – you should put a 1 on it’s place

sort a set - first pass

Now we have an array of 0 and 1.

2. Second Pass

After the first pass, you’d guess what you’ve to do – loop trough the second array and print the keys of the elements different from 0 – those that are 1.

a sorted set of integers

Now the array is sorted!

Source Code

var a = [34, 203, 3, 746, 200, 984, 198, 764];
 
function setSort(arr)
{
    var t = [], len = arr.length;
    for (var i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
        t[i] = 0;
    }
 
    for (i = 0; i < len; i++) {
        t[arr[i]] = 1;
    }
 
    for (i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
        if (1 == t[i]) {
            console.log(i);
        }
    }
}
 
setSort(a);

Now that you’ve seen that algorithm, perhaps you’d guess that it’s no so difficult to change from integers to any other set, and once again I should say that in many cases this is the best algorithm for sorting! Very often quicksort is preferred, but not always there isn’t something faster!

Zend Framework: Inject JavaScript Code in a Action/View

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There is a view helper that can inject a head or inline script into your code.

Simply by putting some JavaScript code into the view script wont do the job, because the .phtml file is grabbed and parsed by the Zend Framework and thus the code there wont be parsed as JavaScript and it wont be executed as well by the browser.

The Most Simple Way …

is to put some place holder into the layout .phtml file and than from the controller’s action you can assign some JS code:

// layout.phtml
<?php
...
echo $this->layout()->scriptTags;
...
<?php
 
class IndexController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
	public function indexAction() 
	{
		$this->view->layout()->scriptTags = '<script src="my.js"></script>';	
	}	
}

Solution No. 2

Although the first solution is correct it’s not the most clearest way, because you put the JavaScript code into the PHP, and this sooner or later becomes a mess.

<?php
 
class IndexController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
	public function indexAction() 
	{
		$this->view->layout()->scriptTags = '<script src="my.js"></script>';
						  . '<script>alert("here\'s my" + "test")</script>';
	}	
}

The IDE is not highlighting the code, and you’ve to deal with too many quotes, which is bad! There is a better solution however – the inline script:

// script tags
/* @var $scripts Zend_View_Helper_InlineScript */
$scripts = $this->view->inlineScript();
$scripts->appendFile('my.js');

Simply the Best

Yeah, the best solution is something even better than the second one. Although the solution I’ve just mentioned is fine for including JS files, when you’ve to add some JS code you’ll have to put it again into the PHP.

$msg = 'some dynamically generated message';
 
// script tags
/* @var $scripts Zend_View_Helper_InlineScript */
$scripts = $this->view->inlineScript();
$scripts->appendFile('my.js');
$scripts->appendScript('alert("' . $msg . '")');

If there’s no relation between JavaScript and PHP you can simply put all this code into a separate .js file and load it from there. This is by the way the best solution because the file is cached by the browser, if the cache is enabled. But most of the time you perhaps have to send some variables from PHP to the JavaScript code.

It would be perfect if you had some kind of a variable placeholders – exactly as you have it in the Zend Framework’s view scripts!

Another View

This is completely possible – just forget about the default view – it renders the view script and it’s bind to the /views/scripts folder. You can make another, completely new, view instead! Here’s some source:

$view = new Zend_View();
$view->setBasePath('path_to_the_js_folder');
 
$view->msg = 'Some dynamically generated message';
 
// script tags
/* @var $scripts Zend_View_Helper_InlineScript */
$scripts = $this->view->inlineScript();
$scripts->appendFile('my.js');
$scripts->appendScript($view->render('inline.js'));

Thus now in the JS file you can have some placeholders!

// inline.js
 
// some js code
// ...
alert('<?php echo $this->msg ?>');

Bind Zend Action with Non-Default View – Part 2

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Typical Setup

Typically Zend Framework is setup to bind every controller’s action to a specific view. The names of the action and the view script must be the same, or at least must be similar – following the ZF’s convention.

Thus if you name an action, let’s say, indexAction(), you’ve to create an index.phtml file into the views/scripts/index/ folder. Let me remind you that this is what is called a typical setup, but this may vary from one installation to another.

Thus everything’s fine and the MVC does its best. After the user requests a specific uri, the framework parses it and finds the controller, than the action and than the view script – and there is a view script for every single action.

typical zend framework setup

When there are two or more actions – there are two or more .phtml (view scripts) files.

typical zend framework setup for two or more actions

Some Exceptions

Sometimes you have very similar logic, but very different markup between two actions. As the logic goes to the controller/action and the markup into the view, the question is can you simply have one action in the controller, but with two different .phtml file as a view scripts? Of course switching between those two (or more) with some conditionals.

Solution No. 1

However once I posted a simple, and working, solution. There you have again two actions and two scripts:

<?php
 
class IndexController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{	
	public function firstAction()
	{
		// place all the logic you need here
		// and every view placeholder assignment
		$this->view->title = "My Title";
 
		// if the logic requires a different markup
		// simply redirect to another view
		if (some_expression) {
			$this->_forward('second');	
		}	
	}
 
	public function secondAction()
	{}
}
 
// in the application/views/scripts/index
// 1. first.phtml
<h1><?php echo $this->title ?></h1>
 
// 2. second.phtml
<h2><?php echo $this->title ?></h2>

As you can see in the second action there’s no logic – it’s only serving the role of a bridge between the views. Everything is setup into the first action, but the second action is doing the relation with the second.phtml view script.

Solution No. 2

However there’s another solution with only one action and two scripts which makes something like that shown on the diagram bellow:

zend framework one action multiple=

The only thing to do is to add some code to your action:

<?php
 
class IndexController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{	
	public function firstAction()
	{
		// place all the logic you need here
		// and every view placeholder assignment
		$this->view->title = "My Title";
 
		// if the logic requires a different markup
		// simply redirect to another view
		if (some_expression) {
			echo $this->view->render('index/second.phtml');
			$this->_helper->viewRenderer->setNoRender(true);
		}	
	}
}
 
// in the application/views/scripts/index
// 1. first.phtml
<h1><?php echo $this->title ?></h1>
 
// 2. second.phtml
<h2><?php echo $this->title ?></h2>

Note that you’ve to setNoRender on the view renderer once you render the other script!