php
Showing posts with label php. Show all posts
Showing posts with label php. Show all posts

Comment Blocks in PHP

January 02, 2010 Add Comment

Comment Blocks in PHP


PHP supports C language, C++ programming language and Unix shell-style (Perl style) comments. In PHP, // or # is used to make a single-line comment or /* and */ to make a large comment block that spans several lines.

For example:

<?php

echo ‘This is a test’; //This is a single-line C++ style comment
echo ‘This is another test’;#This is another single-line shell-style comment
/* This is a multi line comment
Second line of comment */

?>

The “one-line” comment styles comment to the end of the line or the current block of PHP code, whichever comes first. This means that HTML code after the PHP script block (PHP mode broken with ?> and returns to HTML mode after end of PHP code block) will be printed. If the asp_tags configuration directive is enabled, it behaves the same with // %> and # %>. However, the </script> tag doesn’t break out of PHP mode in a single-line comment.

For example,

<h1>This is an <?php # echo ‘simple’;?> example.<h1>
<p>The header above will say ‘This is an example’.</p>

C or C++ style comments end at the first */ encountered. Any nested /* and */ style comments will cause error, and it’s pretty easy to make this mistake if you are trying to comment out a large block of code.

<?php

/*
echo ‘This is a test’; /* This comment will cause a problem */
*/

?>

The PHP comments is useful when you want to comment or disable a large portion of HTML. Instead comment the HTML code line by line, put the whole HTML block into PHP code block (i.e, add <?php and ?>) and comment with /* and */.

CakePHP Routing

December 08, 2006 Add Comment
CakePHP Routing 


I'm currently playing around a bit more with CakePHP. I'm rewriting our CMS system based on the CakePHP framework. It's a great learning exercise because you constantly have to deal with real life problems!

Just now I was wondering about the url structure of the website. The CMS has two different "areas" designed for two different end users. First there is the site itself (displayed to the visitor of the website) and second there is the CMS administration panel. Because I started designing the system from the administration panel's perspective, I soon discovered that thát part of the website was going to be accessed at the root (/). This of course isn't a logical structure, as it would require the pages the visitors visit to have a prefix or something.. So I looked into CakePHP's routing system and came up with some solutions to my problem.

First of all, there is CakePHP's CAKE_ADMIN config setting. This is a routing solution that allows a function called: index() in controller: users to be accessed like this: /admin/users/index. All you need to do is rename the method to: admin_index() and set the CAKE_ADMIN variable to 'admin'. This seemed like a nice solution, but frankly it wasn't. You can still access the controller without the /admin/ prefix, but it will then give out errors (view for admin_index() could not be found). So I went to play a bit more, and found out the following:



  • You can easily reconstruct Cake's default routing (i.e.: /controller/action/param1/param2/...) by using the following route: $Route->connect('/:controller/:action/*', array());

  • The order in which routes are set matter: if one route is successful, Cake will not bother to look at the rest of the routes.So I designed my own /admin/ prefix, like so: $Route->connect('/admin/:controller/:action/*', array());


Then by changing the default route (for '/') to the following line:
$Route->connect('/:page/*', array('controller' => 'posts', 'action' => 'output'));

I can have nice page structures, which are rerouted to /posts/output... Using this structure /posts/output knows which page to load by looking at $this->params['page'] (:page is a custom parameter!). Even better, secondary parameters are still passed (thanks to the trailing /*)!

Since CakePHP uses ordering in the routing, it stops routing after a route was successful. So if you place the /admin/ route above the /:page/* route, administration should be fine!
Also, you might want /admin/ to be accessible without passing on controller/action, etc. (i.e. you would end up at the start page for the administration panel). To do this, include the following route (place it at the top):
$Route->connect('/admin*', array('controller' => 'posts', 'action' => 'index', 'page'));

This will reroute a request to /admin to a default routing location (for me: /posts/index/page)

What I find strange is the fact that the above route doesn't stop Cake from looking on (it will still find the more elabore one; /admin/:controller/:action/*). This is possibly because of the trailing Asterix (*)?

You can of course use these techniques to set up different "areas" for your website (while physically all files are located in the same Cake folder). For instance you could have the following areas:
/blog/
/shop/
/customer_service/

simply by setting up your routings properly.

Please note the 'standard' routing variables:
/somedir/:controller/:action

Here: :controller sets the controller Cake will use and :action sets the action that will be invoked. Furthermore you can set custom parameters with this:
/blog/:page
Now the value for page will be available by using: $this->params['page'].
By the way, other parameters are available in the following array: $this->params['pass']!
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