calande

Hey guys, I was browsing Amazon and saw that O'Reilly has a collection of books called "Head First", and three of them are about design patterns and software development. The description looks good, but I'm afraid it's a little too advanced...Do you know this kind of books about design patterns? Are these books good? Are they aimed at advanced users? Thanks.

Yes, I suppose reading the inside of opensource software such as free ecommerce or free webmail applications developed in PHP can help, although I have already had great problems understanding a chat application developed entirely using OOP with MVC. I gave up on that specific application

It seems the MySQL Workbench application is stable now and it looks pretty good. Do some of you use it? Any feedback on this application? Do you prefer another one? Thanks.

Thanks for the comment. I agree with you. Database design and the SQL language are essential. I had not realized it until I read the book "Beginning database design - From novice to professional". PHP/MySQL books are weak on database principles. The next books I read will alternate between PHP-specific language and database-specific readings.

Thanks, it looks good, albeit expensive. Any other suggestion?

Thanks, yeah, I will do it. I have to. I'll learn by doing.

Hello, I have seen a number of recommendations of visual DB modeling applications for Windows, but I'm unsure which to choose. I wish I could download a few of them and try them out but I have a weak Internet connection so I'll have to stick to one specific application, based on your recommendation. I use MySQL and SQLite databases, for your information. I would like to be able to model a database easily, with a toolbar, and then export the SQL code. What do you suggest? I think a good candidate for an article on PHP Freaks is a benchmark of DB-modeling applications Thanks,

LOL... I was gonna ask the same kinda stuff So, I'm going to high-jack this thread I have read two PHP/MySQL books, I know some PHP and SQL language, and I have written down notes, so at this point, I have enough knowledge to do some stuff but I don't know how to start creating my script. I mean, when my script is done, there is going to be tens of files, folders and subfolders, but the question is...Where to start. The example in the books (shopping cart, university, company employees) are clear to understand, but for a brand new project with a white sheet of paper in front, I'm stuck Are there books that help dividing a project into small pieces and getting organized to know which part need to be done this or that way? Thanks!

Thanks! Yes, I have already used in the past, and at least I won't have to search for it on the PHP.net documentation

Thanks, I will try sending the file size, I think it should help the browser determine also remaining download time...

Hello, I am streaming a file using PHP, so that a user of my web site can download a dynamicly-created zipped file. But if the download fails at one point, if you decide to resume it in your web browser, the download starts all over again, instead of resuming where it stopped, like it would do with a regular static file. Is this a bug? Thanks,

Thanks, yes, that's it. I went through your link. There is quite good material out there. PHP is going to be even better

Hi, Many of us use the Zend Optimizer, PHP Accelerator, or the like. Are there plans among the PHP developers (the very PHP application) to have PHP to compile scripts the first time and then to run the compiled code instead of interpreting scripts always? Having this feature by default (like ASP.NET or JSP) would save some resources for heavily-loaded web servers, and would gain a few milliseconds of execution. What do you think?

Yes, let's mark it as "Solved", as I doubt some one could make the snippet shorter at this point

discomatt: Thanks for the link and for the explanation

discomatt: This snippet works as expected! I understand what the PHP code itself does but I don't understand the rationale...Could you explain in details and share with us please?

Yes, incrementing values. I don't have any concrete use right now, it is for fun but it could be used for a site like TinyURL. I am working on it right now. My code is a little cluttered, when I am done I will post it and maybe you will bring suggestions to make it more simple

dechex(), no, you're cheating We shouldn't be limited to the letter "f" and we need uppercase letters so that we have as many combinations with the lowest number of characters Any other suggestions?

No, it has to count from 0 to ZZZZZ

Thanks guys, the thing is that it should start with just one character and count on and on like this: 1, 2, 3, ..., a, b, c, ..., A, B, C, ..., 1a, 1b, 1c, ..., 1A, 1B, 1C,..., etc... Instead of just generating a random 5-chars string. Any idea?

Hello, I am learning, and I have no specific need for this at the moment, so it's just for fun. How can I generate a series of short strings composed only of lowercase letters, uppercase letters, and numbers so that all strings are different? Think about those TinyURL URLs that are short and uniquely identify URL shortcuts. How could we get started? Could we create a large array containing all uppercase and lowercase letters + numbers from 0 to 9? How could we do it easily (not manually)? With a loop? How? Then, how do we have PHP count from a to z, to A to Z, to 0 to 9, and always increment one unit? One other thing to consider is, suppose we pick this value from the latest record in a database: H7fs, how could we ask PHP to tell us what value the next record should have? (in this case, the next record should have H7ft). This boggles the mind, doesn't it? How would you do? Thanks!

Hello, I was thinking how great forum software is, everybody likes forums, and forum interfaces are neat, with organized threads. I was wondering: What if we used the same forum interface to read our mails? I was browsing a popular forum and I saw that most elements of the forum interface has its equivalent in a webmail: Forum Webmail List of categoriesLabels, common directories (inbox, sent, drafts, trash) List of subcategoriesSublabels ThreadThread Reply formReply form Advanced searchAdvanced search Member listAddress book View unread messagesView unread messages A message could be in several "subforums" at the same time, as it would be flagged (ie: "Business", "Resumes"). Obviously, access would be password-protected. So! My question is: Imagine this were the interface of your webmail: http://www.phpbb.com/community - Would you like it better than Gmail's interface? Or do you prefer Gmail's interface? Please only take the interface aspect into account, just assume the speed of the interface would be as fast as Gmail's. To be honnest, I like both, and I would have a hard time taking a decision, but I want you to be frank, please take the poll and speak out!

Hello, My web site has worked fine for a year and a half now, and I haven't updated it but suddenly it gives me an error message: http://www.andreveiculos.com.br/ Trying to get property of non-object This is actually an object created, so I don't understand why it's returning the error message. I have PHP 5.2.2 and MySQL 4.1. Any idea? Thanks.

Great, perfect, thank you

By the way, do you know where I could find some documentation to understand the above regexp, beside php.net?