Why You Should Always Salt Your Hashes

Hashes are used almost everywhere on the web, behind the scenes, to protect your passwords. Learn why it's important to always add salt to your hashes.

Click here to read this post »

16 December 2009   |   18 comments   |   security, database, passwords, programming, webdev

What Makes a Great Developer?

What makes a truly great developer? Some might say a positive attitude. Some might say a high-sugar, high-caffeine, high-bacon diet. Some might say an absence of sunlight and as many monitors as a desk can support. I say pessimism and laziness are high up the list.

Click here to read this post »

17 April 2008   |   68 comments   |   philosophy, programming, software, development, career, tips, job, developer, blog

PHP Querystring Functions

Adding and removing variables to and from URLs using PHP can be a relatively simple process admittedly, but I have a couple of functions I use often to make the process even less time-consuming.

Add Querystring Variable

A PHP function that will add the querystring variable $key with a value $value to $url. If $key is already specified within $url, it will replace it.

function add_querystring_var($url, $key, $value) {
    $url = preg_replace('/(.*)(?|&)' . $key . '=[^&]+?(&)(.*)/i', '$1$2$4', $url . '&');
    $url = substr($url, 0, -1);
    if (strpos($url, '?') === false) {
        return ($url . '?' . $key . '=' . $value);
    } else {
        return ($url . '&' . $key . '=' . $value);
    }
}

Remove Querystring Variable

A PHP function that will remove the variable $key and its value from the given $url.

function remove_querystring_var($url, $key) {
    $url = preg_replace('/(.*)(?|&)' . $key . '=[^&]+?(&)(.*)/i', '$1$2$4', $url . '&');
    $url = substr($url, 0, -1);
    return ($url);
}

05 December 2006   |   49 comments   |   links, code, development, url, querystring, reference, php, functions, programming, tips, variable

Password Protect a Directory with .htaccess

A tutorial explaining how to retrict access to a directory on a web server using .htaccess.

Click here to read this post »

15 March 2005   |   84 comments   |   howto, webdev, security, programming, php, password, protect, sysadmin, htaccess, website, apache, directory, generator

Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level

Functions to count the number of syllables in a word or sentence, and work out the readability of text.

Click here to read this post »

07 July 2004   |   14 comments   |   reading, webdev, text, programming, reference, php, writing, readability, language, accessibility, algorithm

Gunning-Fog Index

The Gunning-Fog Index is a measure of text readability based upon sentence length and difficult words in a passage.

Click here to read this post »

06 July 2004   |   7 comments   |   code, programming, php, tools, readability, language

Ternary Conditionals

Ternary conditionals (using the "ternary operator", sometimes known as the "trinary operator") are a part of PHP that many simply steer clear of, despite their usefulness. They can save a great deal of time when writing code and can make for much easier code to read and edit later on. They look strange to many people though, which might explain why they are not as widely used as they could be.

Consider a normal conditional statement, like the following. It begins by evaluating a condition. If that condition is true, it follows one path. Sometimes, an alternate path is specified if the condition is not true (the 'else' section). Sometimes, you can have a list of several possible conditions in a row (using 'if ... elseif ... else' or 'switch ... case').

if (condition) {
    variable = value-if-true;
} else {
    variable = value-if-false;
}

However, a simple situation like the above is a perfect candidate to convert to a ternary conditional. You have one condition, and if it is true, the variable is given a certain value - if false, a different value. A ternary conditional can accomplish the same thing, concatenating it into one simple line of code.

variable = (condition) ? value-if-true : value-if-false;

Ternary conditionals take the above form. You do not necessarily need to have a "variable = " section (as you will see later on), but usually that is what this is used for. The above does exactly the same thing as the 'if ... else' statement earlier. If the condition evaluates to true, the variable will be assigned the value in the "value-if-true" section, otherwise it will receive the "value-if-false" value.

In practice, you could use the ternary conditional to, for example, greet a user depending on whether it is currently morning or afternoon. Using traditional code ('if ... else'), you might write something like this:

if (date("G") < 12) {
    echo 'Good morning';
} else {
    echo 'Good afternoon';
}

The same statement, using a ternary conditional, would look like this:

echo (date("G") < 12) ? 'Good morning' : 'Good afternoon';

Note that in this example, we've used "echo", rather than assigning a value to a variable. The above is exactly the same as this, which does make use of a variable:

$greeting = (date("G") < 12) ? 'Good morning' : 'Good afternoon';
echo $greeting;

Another situation in which I often use ternary conditionals is when displaying rows of data. It can often be much easier for a user to see what is going in if the rows alternate background colour, and the following code can be useful for that:

$i = 1;
echo '<table>';
while ($data = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
    echo '    <tr>';
    echo '        <td bgcolor="';
    echo (($i % 2) == 0) ? '#eee' : '#ddd' ;
    echo '">';
    echo $data['field'];
    echo '        </td>';
    echo '    </tr>';
    $i++;
}
echo '</table>';

The above code will cycle through a result set, displaying each item in a new row. The background colour of the row will alternate between shades of grey, controlled by the ternary conditional on the bold line.

Ternary conditionals make for tidier code. Use them - if not for yourself, then for whoever is going to end up editing your scripts!

02 June 2004   |   27 comments   |   webdev, development, tutorial, programming, ternary, tips, php, coding

Email Address Validation

How to validate email addresses according to ISO standards with PHP.

Click here to read this post »

01 June 2004   |   200 comments   |   code, development, email, php, programming, regex, regexp, security, tutorial, validation, webdesign

PHP DateDiff Function

VBScript's DateDiff function is a powerful way to express differences between dates, and PHP lacks a similar function. Here's a replica of VBScript's DateDiff function in PHP.

Click here to read this post »

20 April 2004   |   74 comments   |   webdev, php, datediff, date, script, webdesign, programming

VBScript Date Format Functions

Date formatting in VBScript is not quite as powerful as PHP. This function gives you plenty more ways to format dates and times in VBScript with the minimum of effort.

Click here to read this post »

15 March 2004   |   68 comments   |   scripts, development, reference, programming, vbscript, javascript, time, unix, date, asp, vb, webdesign

VBScript Regular Expressions

Regular expression reference and examples for VBScript.

Click here to read this post »

07 November 2003   |   31 comments   |   code, regex, regexp, reference, programming, asp, vbscript, vb, regular, scripting, expressions, regular-expressions