I am just starting out with Haxe development, and wanted to give the PHP side a go, but am already a little confused.
What is the best way to save some form data to XML files in a folder on a server with Haxe compiled to PHP?
Well you can do it two ways.
Make the website form in haxe, which includes:
making proper .htaccess file for the project on server,
writting a Main class (that htaccess will be pointing) which will take a request,
and return either a form html document or will take the data from the form...
then put that data into xml format,
and finally put that data into a file.
Here are Api files you should have a look at:
File methods for writting to a file
Web class that will get request data and fire up proper class and function, getURI, getMethod, getParams
Template class for generating simple html / very simple
Depending on complexity of xml you may want to use a specialized class
And the second way is almost the same, but you only compile to one file.
And in your html form, you put your action link to the php filed that came out of compilation...
Related
I'm quite new to web developement and I'm working on a school project where I am to create a simple educational video platform. My upcomming task is to make my site a single page application. From what I've gathered, jQuery and AJAX will make this happen. While browsing examples and tutorials about these languages, I'm starting to wonder if my HTML/PHP/Script code structure needs to change. Picture contains the typical structure of my files.
I've been writing the PHP and HTML in the same .php file for each job the site has to do (e.g. upload video form data). I've included all of these in my main.php file. To make it a single page application, will I need to separate HTML and PHP from each include file, into different files? Also I'd like some feedback (opinions) on how I've structured this so far.
The high-level of what you want to do is move your php logic out of your html files. Here's how a single-page app should handle data flow:
In file.HTML: forms and fields take user input (anything from text to files)
In file.JS: You use jQuery to listen for events that are happening, essentially using your page's dom elements to pass dynamically entered data to your server through AJAX calls
In controller.php: The ajax call goes to a method in one of your controller files where all your logic will happen, items will be added to your database, etc.
In file.JS: The ajax call finishes by receiving data from your controller method, and makes the necessary changes to your view file (again using jQuery)
In file.html: The jQuery updates show a user the results of their input
The big change to make is separating your php and html files. Since you're doing a single-page application, you can probably get away with one html file, but you should have generally have a controller for every class (assuming you are using class and model interchangeably).
One thing that also might be missing is routes, though I've seen people getting by passing files as the 'url' field (a required field when making an AJAX call).
As far as file structure, most web frameworks will pair cs and js folders into a parent folder called public.
When it comes to jQuery, this is the best cheat sheet around. Make sure you have at least a basic understanding of the dom before going in too deep though.
You may want to learn about MVC pattern
you can start here
The MVC Pattern and PHP
Here is the flow I would like to achieve:
I have a set of template .php files on server.
Visitor of the website chooses some options
Options are added to template files as pieces of code
Visitor downloads customized files (.zip should contain both default template files if not customised, and customized ones)
Original files remain intact for the next visitor
The flow is similar to bootstrap customisation, only difference is that on bootstrap visitors are editing .less files, and my visitors would edit .php files
I would appreciate if you could point me to general direction how to execute steps 3,4 and 5, baring in mind that user input will be stored in objects and arrays with javascript.
My php knowledge is very rudimentary, so I don't know where would I start.
If you need any clarifications please do not hesitate to ask.
Thanks!
If the users only modify configuration options it seems the best way forward would be to use JSON as it is very easy to encode/decode with JS & PHP with $.parseJSON (jQuery) and json_decode() & json_encode() respectively.
You would provide a form and then convert these user inputs into the JSON format and store it in a .json file which can then be zipped up and sent as a download to your user.
This would also allow users to upload their zip files and have the form inputs defaulted to their original options.
So lets run through how bootstrap does it.
Page to customize the bootstrap file, you would do the same with a similar form.
Once the form is POSTed, take the array of form inputs and validate them for malicious input, correct data types such as a number etc and remove any form inputs that should not be there.
Convert the input into JSON, without validation this is easy as json_encode($_POST).
Write that to a JSON file and allow the user to download it (zip it up if you want).
In your case you have multiple PHP files, this seems a bit off and you should not be using PHP files to hold this sort of variable configuration data, JSON seems a lot better suited.
Take a look at this SO question: What is the best file format for configuration file?
Three methods are mentioned, PHP's way, JSON & XML. Take your pick, but I'm willing to bet that the easiest one for you is JSON.
If you have not used JSON before, create a new PHP script and try out the functions with multi-dimensional arrays and have a play around.
PHP Documention for JSON
If you are using JavaScript to store user selections etc., I recommend you don't actually use php for any of the functionality you described. So do it like this:
Store templates as static text file with demarcated sections to insert user options. Make the demarcated sections different from php syntax like ###Your option here###.
This is easy.
Fetch the relevant template using AJAX and do a simple string replace in JavaScript on the demarcated sections.
Put the resulting php code into a <textarea> using JavaScript for them copy and paste into Notepad or something
Original files are static and code is client-side, so this is fine
So I understand you want to ship php scripts customised for the user.
Consider having php files that cater for all possible user inputs. Then capture the user options into a configuration file where the structure is predictacable and easy to create.
For example
# config.inc.php
# Created by script that captures user options
$config['allow_shipping'] = true;
then in the php script
# file1.php
include config.inc.php
if ($config[$config['allow_shipping'] === true) {
some_php_code;
}
Your steps will be
I have a set of .php scripts files on server.
Visitor of the website chooses some options
Options are sent to a server script which creates a config file.
Visitor downloads customized files (.zip should contain both script files and config file)
Original files remain intact for the next visitor (less the config file)
Some posts to guide you
How I can create installer for website. PHP mysql
and
PHP Installer Script
I would consider making default code snippets and have every "option" link to various required snippets. That way every time an option is selected it uses the right code.
To continue with #Crafter's example, you could have the following code snippets
if (
$config[
]
===
) {
}
I have done this once before when I tried something similar in Java, and even though it seems to be more work than it should, it will end up quite useful once you get a sizeable "database" of code snippets.
Hope it was of any use?
-Peter
I am thinking about how some online services create dynamic JavaScript files. These files have the .js extension, but their content is not static. I found a sample file here. It seems that this script is generated with a higher level programming language. I think it is done with PHP or something similar, but I am not sure, and I have not found any documentation about this topic.
Is there any well known way to create these kind of dynamic JavaScript files?
Consider carefully whether generating a dynamic JS file is necessary at all. Instead of generating dynamic JS, you can often simply inject static script(s) and use separate JSON to support dynamic configuration into your page.
If you view source on this (or about any) StackOverflow page you'll see that they're using this same pattern: Static external .js files that reference a separate centralized chunk of JSON for configuration. That JSON is what provides dynamism.
View source and look for this:
StackExchange.init({...
Most server side languages make it trivial to serialize an object to JSON so you can inject it into your page.
Here's ten reasons utilizing external static js files is preferable:
Cached
Code colored
Syntax checked
Separation of concerns
Reusable
Easier to read.
One less layer of abstraction
Can serve minified and obfuscated
Avoids string parsing on every request
StackOverflow and all the cool kids are doing it (hey, I promised 10 reasons.)
More info here: http://www.bitnative.com/2013/10/06/javascript-configuration-object-pattern/
That depends on whether you want to generate files or return data. Generating files would be done with something like file_put_contents. Alternatively you could have a .js file in a folder with a .htaccess file that tells you to execute it as php, allowing you to simply generate the script on the fly based on session, get, or post parameters.
You can use any server-side language to create dynamic javascript files, javascript files don't need to end with .js. If you really want your files to end with .js you'll need to edit your server settings to also process .js files as for instance PHP files.
You can also use server code to generate inline javascript.
But be careful when generating javascript files, it can become very complex when you are mixing two programming languages
I have a properly coded HTML page that I can display in my app.
The file is embedded locally inside the app, but it pulls in data from an API.
It is a Rest API that works with PHP.
So my question now is - is it possible to have NSString inject it's value into the php file so that it can display the required result, or are PHP and Objective-c not designed to do that??
If you are looking to actually parse and execute PHP in your iOS app, I am afraid you are probably out of luck.
If you simply want to dynamically update certain elements on a static HTML page and leverage a PHP service to do it, your best bet is probably to use javascript and AJAX to put the dynamic content from the service.
Alternatively, you can treat the HTML file like a template, make a call to the PHP service to get the dynamic content; merge that content into the template and display the template.
I guess what is most appropriate in your case, will ultimately depend on your desired user experience.
I've used a couple of days to think of a best practice to generate a PDF, which end users can customize the layout for themselves. The PDF output needs to be saved on the server or sent back to the PHP file so the PHP file can save it, and the PHP file needs to know that it went OK.
I thought the best way to do this was to use XML, XSLT and Apache Cocoon. But I'm not sure if this is possible or if it's a good idea since I can't find any information of people doing anything similar. It cannot be an uncommon problem.
The idea came when I read about Cocoon converting XML through XSLT to PDF:
http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/howto/howto-html-pdf-publishing.html
and being able to take in variables:
http://old.nabble.com/how-to-access-post-parameters-from-sitemap-td31478752.html
This is what I had in mind:
A php file gets called by a user, the php file generates a source XML file with a specific name
The php file then makes a request to Cocoon (on the same web server) to apply the user defined XSLT on the XML file. A parameter will be needed here to know which XSLT to apply.
The request is handled by the PHP file and then saved as a PDF on the server, and can later be mailed away.
Will this work at all? Is there a better way to handle this?
The core problem is that the users need to be able to customize the layout on the PDFs themselves, and I need the server to save the PDF and to mail it later on. The users will use it for order confirmations, invoices, etc. And I wouldn't like to hard code the layout for each user.
I've had some good results in the past by setting up JasperReports Server and creating reports using iReport Designer. They're both available in F/OSS ("community") editions, though you can pay for support and value-adds if you need those things.
This was a good solution for us, since we could access it via the Java API for our Java system, and via SOAP for our PHP system. The GUI designer made tweaking reports very easy for non-technical business staff too.
I use webkithtml2pdf to generate my PDF:s. Just create a document with HTML and CSS for printing like you would usually do, the run it through the converter.
It works great for generating things like invoices. You can use SVG for logos and illustrations, and they will look great in print since they are vector based. Even rounded corners with dotted outlines works perfectly.
A minor gotcha is that the input html must have th htm or html file name suffix, so you can't use the default tempfile functions.