ash.MVC Blog

Detailed Step-wise Instructions to Setup PHP Development Environment on Windows XP PC

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 05:48:31 +0000

Software must be installed in the following order:

MySQL 4.1.22
PHP 5.2.2
Apache HTTP Server 2.2.2
phpMyAdmin 2.6.4

Download MySQL 4.1.22 from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/4.1.html#win32

Installing MySQL

Step I: Click Next

Step II: Select Setup Type and click Next

Step III: Click Install

Step IV: Select account type

Step V: Click Finish to exit and select Configure the MySQL Server now to configure MySQL

Step VI: Click Next to continue

Step VII: Select configuration type and click Next to continue

Step VIII: Select server type and click Next to continue

Step IX: Select database usage

Step X: Choose the drive and directory for the InnoDB datafile and click Next to continue

Step XI: Set the approximate number of concurrent connections to the server and click Next to continue

Step XII: Set the networking options and click Next

Step XIII: Select the default charset and click Next

Step XIV: Set the Windows options and click Next

Step XV: Enter the root password and click Next

Step XVI: Click Finish to close the Wizard

Download PHP 5.2.2 from http://www.php.net/downloads.php

Installing PHP

Create a directory php on your computer under “C:\”
Unzip the downloaded contents and put it all in “C:\php”

Configuring PHP

After the contents have been unzipped,

Copy php5apache2.dll, php5ts.dll and libmysql.dll (available under “C:\php”) into your “C:\WINDOWS\system”
Copy php5ts.dll (available under “C:\php”) into your “C:\WINDOWS”

Rename php.ini-recommended (available under “C:\php”) to php.ini and open it using an ASCII text editor such as Notepad

In line no. 513, change doc_root = to doc_root = “your directory”, the directory out of which you will serve your PHP pages.
In line no. 520, change extension_dir = to extension_dir = “C:\php\ext”, the directory in which the loadable extensions (modules) reside.
In line no. 651, uncomment extension=php_mysql.dll

Download Apache HTTP Server 2.2.2 from http://archive.apache.org/dist/httpd/binaries/win32/apache_2.2.2-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi

Installing Apache

Step I: Click Next

Step II: Select “I accept the terms in the license agreement” and click Next

Step III: Enter server information and click Next

Step IV: Select setup type and click Next

Step V: Select folder to install and click Next

Step VI: Click Install to begin installation

Step VII: Click Finish to exit the wizard

Configuring Apache

Under “C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf” open httpd file (text document) using an ASCII text editor such as Notepad

In line no. 149, change DocumentRoot “” to DocumentRoot “your directory”, the directory out of which you will serve your documents.
In line no. 177, change Directory “” to Directory “directory already set in DocumentRoot”
Add the following code at the end of the file

LoadFile “C:/php/php5ts.dll”
LoadModule php5_module “C:/php/php5apache2_2.dll”
PHPIniDir “C:/php”
AddType text/html .php .phps
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php-source .phps

In line no. 212, add DirectoryIndex index.html index.php to make sure that index.php or index.html will be picked up automatically by the server at start-up.

Download phpMyAdmin 2.6.4 from http://www.oldapps.com/download.php?oldappsid=phpMyAdmin-2.6.4-pl4.zip

Installing phpMyAdmin

Create a directory phpMyAdmin in your root directory
Unzip the downloaded contents put it all in phpMyAdmin directory

Configuring phpMyAdmin

Under phpMyAdmin folder open config.inc.php file using an ASCII text editor such as Notepad.

In line no. 36, change $cfg[’PmaAbsoluteUri’] = ‘’; to $cfg[’PmaAbsoluteUri’] = ‘http://localhost/phpMyAdmin/’;
In line no. 75, change $cfg[’Servers’][$i][’password’]= ‘’; to $cfg[’Servers’][$i][’password’]= ‘Your Database Password’; i.e., MySQL password

Add “C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 4.1\bin;C:\php” to the Variable value

Steps to go to Variable value

Right click My Computer icon
Click Properties from the list shown
Click Advanced tab
Click Environment Variables
Click Path and then Edit under the list of System variables shown
Then add “C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 4.1\bin;C:\php” in Variable value and click Ok

Before testing restart your computer. Create a PHP file with phpinfo(); as a function. Save the file as “phpinfo.php” into your root directory. Restart your Apache server so that it can read the new configuration directives you placed into httpd file (text document). Open your browser and type “http://localhost/phpinfo.php”. You should see information about your PHP setup.

Applications helpful to install are

FF 2.0 .Download from http://www.firefox2.com/en/
OpenOffice 2.2 .Download from http://download.openoffice.org/index.html
FileZilla .Download from http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla/
Putty SSH 0.59 .Download from http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/PuTTY-Download-1001.html
Crimson Editor 3.70 .Download from http://www.crimsoneditor.com/english/download.html

Printing a webpage

Manish — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 14:51:03 +0000

Webpage can be printed using window.print(). Here is the code:

Print This Page

“return false” cancels the link to “webpage.html”.

When the hyperlink “Print This Page” is clicked, the page is printed if the printer is already installed.

Assign PHP array content to a JavaScript array

admin — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 14:50:17 +0000

Sometimes we need to transfer the server side data to client side. Means we may need to transfer PHP variable or array values to Javascript variable or values. The following script will solve this problem very well.

$aDatas = array();
$aTitles = array();
$iMaxCount = 10;
for($iCount=0; $iCount< $iMaxCount; $iCount++)
{
$aDatas[$iCount] = $iCount +10;
$aTitles[$iCount] = 'Title'. $iCount;
}

Make sure that you have given single quote before and after PHP tag, while assigning STRING values from PHP variables to JS.

Array JavaScript php Array, JavaScript, php

Why a web page needs to be XHTML & CSS validated?

admin — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 13:29:49 +0000

While developing a web page, we normally go for XHTML (preferably, Strict 1.0) & CSS2 validation. This is due to the following reasons:

All browsers are competing to comply to the W3 standards. Suppose, for example, an updated version of a browser is released. Our web page may not look as expected if the page does not comply to w3 standards. If we have validated it then it will look fine in the new versions of browsers without making any further changes to the source code.
There are lot of browsers in web world. While developing a web page we don’t get chance or time to test our pages in all browsers. But if we have made our page XHTML & CSS validated then we can well be assured that the web page will retain most of its original look & feel in all browsers.
Search bots find complied (or validated) pages easy to index.

We can check our web page against XHTML validation at:

XHTML: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

CSS html JavaScript W3C Compliance XHTML CSS, html, JavaScript, W3C Compliance, XHTML

Underline on mouse rollover

Manish — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 05:13:36 +0000

Underline on mouse rollover

There are two ways of achieving this functionality

1. Javascript
2. CSS

Javascript:
By using “onmouseover” and “onmouseout” events which calls two user defined functions “blockStyle(’param’)” and “displayStyle(’param’)”,where param is a unique id for that hyperlink when the event occurs.
Eg. click here

CSS:
By using hover.
Write this source code in the css file.
a:hover
{
text-decoration:underline;
color: blue;
}
This above code will affect all the hyperlinks(anchor tag) in the same webpage.

JavaScript mouse roll over JavaScript, mouse roll over

Trim function applied to Javascript

admin — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:50:17 +0000

The following code will help to apply “Trim” function in javascript. Here is an example where we are retriving data from a prompt message box then applying “Ltrim” & “RTrim” like functions.

var sData = prompt(”Enter The Name”,”");           // Receives data from user
var sLeft = /\s*((\S+\s*)*)/;
var sRight = /((\s*\S+)*)\s*/;
sData = sData.replace(sLeft, “$1″);              // Removes blank spaces from left
sData = sData.replace(sRight, “$1″);           // Removes blank spaces from right

JavaScript Trim function JavaScript, Trim function

Time calculation of various Timezones

admin — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:48:04 +0000

function calcTime(sCity, offset)
{

    // create Date object for current location
    d = new Date();

    // convert to msec
    // add local time zone offset
    // get UTC time in msec
    utc = d.getTime() + (d.getTimezoneOffset() * 60000);

    // create new Date object for different city
    // using supplied offset
    nd = new Date(utc + (3600000*offset));

    // return time as a string
    sDateTime = nd.toLocaleString();   // It is total datetime format

    document.write(sCity+” : “+sDateTime);

}

// Set the time for countries
calcTime(’London’, ‘+0.0′); // ‘+0.00′ is the standard timezone of London
calcTime(’Sydney’, ‘+10.0′);
calcTime(’New York’, ‘-5.0′);

JavaScript time timezone JavaScript, time, timezone

Refresh the parent browser when the popup is closed

admin — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:44:19 +0000

When you click on a hyperlink on the popup window the popup closed & the parent window needs to be refreshed.

To satisfy this need you have to write the following code in the hyperlink (”close window”) of popup window.

javascript:self.close(); // closes the current window (Popup).

opener.location.reload(); // Reloads the content of the parent window.

browser JavaScript browser, JavaScript

Security in PHP Applications

admin — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 22:52:27 +0000

Some of the important links are:

http://phpsec.org/ – PHP Security Consortium
PHP Security Mistakes
PHP Security
Top 7 security Blunder while using PHP

First one is the most important one.

php security web application php, security, web application

Programming Mistakes And Avoid Them

admin — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 22:48:00 +0000

Three important articles:

php security web application php, security, web application