The small company i work for have asked me to MAYBE write a webservice in PHP. I have used webservices (Flickr, Youtube and so on). But never written one. I am an experienced PHP webdeveloper (obviously not webservices).
Before a accept/deny this task. Are there anything special with webservices or can i just do i like this:
if ($GET["something"]==="somethingelse")
{
header('Content-Type: application/json');
echo json_encode(array(Answer => 'yes'));
}
Can i do it like that?
Yes, you can, in fact this is a good start for your first webservice i think.
Having a php-script with diffrent branches (if-tests on url parameters) is very fast and easy way to create a webservice.
I would not use a SOAP/XML based webservice unless it was strictly required. (Saves time writing WSDL, testing etc). SOAP/XML webservices may give you features like UDDI (service catalogue), but again, I wouldn't waste time make it if it was not required :-)
I have found nuSOAP to be rather comprehensive and easy to use.
Please check out their page and ask again, if you run into difficulties
http://sourceforge.net/projects/nusoap/
Related
I can't figure out what exactly to use for interaction between my site and the Telegram service (first of all - how to get the authentication process done using PHP and other stuff like chat among users).
On this page: https://core.telegram.org/api I haven't got an idea how to use those functions in PHP.
According to this page: https://telegram.org/apps
I have two choices:
1) The CLI-interface (unofficial, by the way): https://github.com/vysheng/tg
and it doesn't have an autentification function among others. In order to authenticate yourself, you need to run:
bin/telegram-cli -k tg-server.pub
and inside of the application you have to enter your cell phone and the secret code sent by SMS - after that you're authorized. Then you install https://github.com/zyberspace/php-telegram-cli-client and run telegram-cli as a daemon:
./bin/telegram-cli -dWS /tmp/tg.sck -k tg-server.pub &
Does it mean that I have to create tg-server.pub manually using PHP for each user which is trying to login?
2) Webogram: https://github.com/zhukov/webogram - but it's written on JavaScript and has very complicated code.
Dear Stackoverflow gurus, maybe you're more attentive than I am and could help me to recognize the right solution (or example, I don't know, the PHP snippet or anything else) for the user's chat based on the Telegram and PHP?
I would greatly appreciate it!
Thank you!
I have posted a step by step guide on getting your AuthKey (VB.net) here
The main challenge with Telegram API is the documentation... but if you can work through the first part - getting an AuthKey then i believe the rest should fall in place ... with some more effort.
Working through some GitHub src might be time consuming, it might be best to get a handle on the documentation and then work your way to building your own code for TelegramAPI from scratch
Most likely, PHP wrapper for Telegram API doesn't exist. I'd wager it's because communicating with Telegram servers from your server-side PHP code defeats both of the core features of Telegram: speed and security.
no speed - a message has to hop through one additional loop (your server) before it reaches the recipient.
no security - browser page will communicate with your server via AJAX or forms, I assume. This means sending data as plain text (unless you're on https), open to the whole world to see (if you were to sit on a public wifi, or something like that).
You can implement the Telegram API, it's a bit involved, but doable. But it's totally pointless, in my opinion.
As an alternative, just embed the webogram in an <iframe> or something :)
Now, you can use MadelineProto https://github.com/danog/MadelineProto - enought powerful PHP client for MTProto Telegram!
Ok, this is probably something answered millions of times, but I couldn't find an answer on Google (maybe I'm using the wrong parameters?).
Here is the thing:
I'm planning to implement a REST webservice using PHP. This webservice is supposed to serve a mobile app and also a website (located on the same server/virtualhost/whatever).
For example, URLs will be something like:
http://www.somedomain.com/API/ (RESTful webservice)
http://www.somedomain.com/ (WebSite, which will fetch data from the same sources that the webservice uses).
Now my question is:
Which type of query is the most recommended for querying the database? For example, if I login from the website (http://www.somedomain.com/), it would be better to implement another internal PHP API for that or to login using cURL to the REST API and why?
I know, if I implement another PHP function for login from the website, I will be using one less HTTP connection to my server, but wouldn't it break the idea of the RESTful API?
Thank you in advance.
I'd say you want to leave out the HTTP round-trip where you can. That's potentially extremely wasteful, though if the calls are rare then it may be worth it for the code de-deduplication. It all depends on your application really.
Don't worry too much about "breaking the RESTful API" — by your logic, your own application should have no function calls and just be full of curl invocations to itself. No, instead, at some point, your code needs to shake off the management speak and just get down to bloody work. :)
I am sure most of you know this, but for the sake of completeness:
A function or procedure is a designated program-section that handles a specific task and usually consists out of a function declaration or definition and a function body.
When a function is called remotely, it is known as a remote procedure call (RPC), and the invocation implementation as a Remote Procedure, which is generally handled by an RPC- API and in rare cases by an ABI.
So at the heart of your quest lies questioning the necessity for remote procedure invocation, and how much a given procedure should perform. As such heeding good code-refactoring guidlines is a good start to a good API. I generally adhere to the following pointers:
If you do not need the necessity of remote invocation for a given procedure, do not expose it unnecessarily.
Choose wisely which procedures you make API accessible and unit-test them.
Create various wrapper functions which successively call a set of local functions to perform specific tasks as opposed to calling each function remotely, and render them accessible to the REST API.
An initial authentication procedure is a good idea, but I would recommend using established protocols such as OAuth 2 rather than implementing your own. As such may end up using curl in your remote php script.
This should get you started.
Other than that you do not provide enough information to give you a more specific answer. I would generally recommend to look at google, yahoo, facebook, and perhaps NCBI's PUG to see how they implement their REST APIs, which are often a good case-study.
Is it wrong to use POST for everything in REST? I know POST is for updating and creating but what if I use it for SELECTS and DELETS as well? What I basically need is a web service that can do CRUD operations to a database. Im using PHP. Also, what if I use query strings to do the POST request instead of using JSON or XML?
If you're using POST for all operations, you can't really call it REST anymore.
So it's not wrong, but it's not REST either :)
Yes, it's wrong. If you are using POST for anything other than updating you aren't actually following the REST convention.
You can eat soup with fork but why? Anyway you can use any method, just don't call it REST protocol.
Is it wrong to use POST for everything in REST?
You can't use POST for everything in REST (e.g. only for requests, not responses), so the question about wrong or right is not a valid question.
I know POST is for updating and creating but what if I use it for SELECTS and DELETS as well?
It normally just works.
What I basically need is a web service that can do CRUD operations to a database.
That's fine.
Im using PHP.
That's fine, too. PHP hast support for the HEAD, GET and POST method. For the PUT and DELETE methods you need to do a little bit more coding.
Also, what if I use query strings to do the POST request instead of using JSON or XML?
You use query strings instead of JSON/XML request bodies. REST does not specify the protocol, so you can do whatever pleases you. Using "query strings" might be a good idea with PHP as PHP supports those out of the box. But it depends what you use for a handler or what you want to support.
As your questions are very broad, you might want to read some basic description of REST first before so you can more specifically ask: A Brief Introduction to REST.
It's wrong to use POST for calls that are meant to be repeatable.
POST calls are never cached but your select calls should be cache-able (and repeatable) so you shouldn't be using POST for them.
But there's no technical reason why you can't force everything through POST, (particularly as DELETE isn't supported across all browsers), but it does mean that caching won't work for any of your calls, and also that your users may not be able to refresh a web page without being asked to confirm page reload if POST calls have been made to create it.
At this REST tutorial here the 4th article in the series says:
For creation, updating, and deleting data, use POST requests. (POST can also be used for read-only queries, as noted above, when complex parameters are required.)
Of course GET is usually used for read-only queries, so putting it all together, if complexity is the default assumption, which is kind of a handy assumption when no threshold between complexity and simplicity is stated, then this guy who is enough an authority to write a whole series on REST is saying that it's okay to POST everything. May be caches make some assumptions about responses to various HTTP verbs that might be beneficial but if your application does not benefit from caching (indeed, might be harmed by it, so disable it or do something so your application does not suffer from it) then I don't know if there's any problem at all.
I am new to the world of PHP and coding as those have helped me answer a number of questions I have posted know. I have the opportunity to jump into the deep end however seeing I have no clue about PHP and web services, I am seeking your help. I would appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction as I have not been able to find any examples nor detailed information regarding it.
Effectively there is a PHP page that needs to pass certain values to a .NET web service i.e. name, email, mobile number and upon the receipt of such information the web service sends out a text message. This is information I have so far
The Allocation service uses a basic HTTP binding and TransportWithMessageCredential security.
Sample C# code using a reference generated with Visual Studio tooling
Allocation.AllocationServiceV3Client Client = new Allocation.AllocationServiceV3Client();
Allocation.AllocateResult Result;
string VoucherCode;
DateTime ExpiryDate;
string DisplayMessageText;
Client.ClientCredentials.UserName.UserName = ? ;
Client.ClientCredentials.UserName.Password = ? ;
Result = Client.AllocateToConsumerMobileAndSendSMS(out VoucherCode,
out ExpiryDate,
out DisplayMessageText,
ClientID,
ClientReference,
CampaignID,
ActivityID,
MobileNumber);
if (Result != Allocation.AllocateResult.Success)
{
}
I have no clue about PHP and web services
First things first, pick your brain up out of the C# soup and sit it out to dry off for a few hours. PHP is a simple language for simple things. If you're new to it, you don't want to try and make it do complex things, and you certainly don't want to try writing C# style code in PHP.
Let's take "web services" as an example of a "complex" thing. In some circles, this means horribly designed monstrosities like SOAP. VS makes it relatively easy to build SOAP bindings to your existing classes, so it's not a painful solution for you.
SOAP is a very painful solution for PHP.
Effectively there is a PHP page that needs to pass certain values to a .NET web service
It sounds like you have an existing web service set up then, correct?
You could try and use the built in SOAP client, but it's an undebuggable and unconfigurable binary blob of horrors that will make you want to kill someone if it doesn't work for you immediately.
Edit: The section below was written incorrectly assuming that both sides were under your control. As this is not the case, you can disregard the rest of the answer. I'm leaving it up because it may be valuable to others.
I would advise a different approach. Set up an endpoint (URL) in your .NET application that expects the data you've specified as POST values, and have PHP POST the data. This has the distinct advantage of being incredibly simple. Because you're new to PHP, simple is a big win.
(In other words, ditch the "web service" -- or make a parallel copy if other things consume that service already.)
PHP comes with a service called PEAR, a repository of helpful classes. You can use HTTP_Request2 to quickly build the HTTP POST request. Chances are that it's already installed. If it isn't, it's easy to install either at the system level using the pear command, or locally in your project.
Here's some quick example code copied straight out of the reference guide:
$request = new HTTP_Request2('http://www.example.com/your/endpoint/url.foo');
$request->setMethod(HTTP_Request2::METHOD_POST)
->addPostParameter('name', '...')
->addPostParameter('email', '...')
->addPostParameter('mobile', '...');
$response = $request->send();
You can then read the response as needed.
Now, this isn't a perfect solution. Your C# code mentions a username and password, which I suppose could be included in the POST data. You could also use HTTP authentication (supported by HTTP_Request2) instead.
Ok, now from what I understand, C# will make a request to the php page, wich then (in simple html) gives it back some data.
PHP Is made to do some calculation serverside and when it's done it will send the prints and echo's to the client side as html (simple explanation)
If you want to start using php you would be best off getting into the basics by following the tutorials at W3School (http://w3schools.com/php/default.asp)
Then you can use http://php.net as a reference for more functions you might need.
The way you'll want to set it up is for C# to make a request to a page like action.php
And then using a $_GET method to get the data so C# would send a request to
action.php?userid='456'
I've done some googling around on this topic, but there seems to be only one option: the Dropbox official API. Is there no other way i could do some sort of JSON/PHP get_file_contents etc, when you get tweets from twitter you can use the user_timeline, is there no alternative for Dropbox people have come across. I just want something i can put a username and password into the PHP script and have it get the files (or am i dreaming and will have to use the API)
Check out the Dropbox PHP SDK it uses OAuth for validation which is the safest way.
You're dreaming and will have to use the API. This is exactly what API's are for, for programming applications to talk to applications. Specifically on the subject of authentication, there would be so many security issues with just having a user/pass in your code it's not even funny. Things like OAuth and other API authentication methods exist to make this kind of thing safer and saner. Sort of like lighting a campfire in a firepit instead of the middle of a dry grassland.
There are libraries like the one fire mentions that can wrap the API and make it easier to access from your language, but you need to play by the rulebook here. I know it sounds daunting but your application will be the better for doing it right.
You could also use the hosting service KISSR which would allow you to host your entire site out of Dropbox. This would be simpler than using the API but you wouldn't be able to use PHP.
it is not that much of a odd question that has been asked. as if you are using two hosting services one of them for just hosting images the other is for interaction events, done gazillions of time, some servers use term 'content/image leeching', hard to differenciate legit useage. however thats what consumer is asking/requesting, funny answers