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Incrementing / Decrementing a Number by a Number with PHP
We've previously discussed how to simply increment and decrement a variable but that only covered incrementing by a value of 1. What about when you want to increment a variable by 5s? There's a few different ways this can be [...]
The Complexity of Permalinks and Slugs with User Generated Content
I'm not referring to the complexity of the permalink or slug itself, but the complexity to your code that can be introduced with certain formats, specifcally anything that the user can modify. When I was originally building SceneKids.com I wanted [...]
Sorting an associative array by a specific key with PHP
One of PHP's most powerful data types is the array. It can hold numbers, it can hold letters, it can be sorted, sliced and chunked. Speaking of sorting, when sorting an array the straight forward sorting functions are only for [...]
How to convert a CSV file into an array with PHP
Loading CSV files into an array is something that comes up more times than I'd like to admit. Scrubbing mailing lists, loading flat files to a database and various other use cases are out there and fortunately, PHP makes it [...]
Company culture is what you make of it
Been hearing from some of my friends that have recently taken new jobs about how shitty the company culture is at the company they work at. We've all been there, working in a development shop with the single goal to [...]
How to Determine if it is Friday the 13th with PHP
It seemed fitting that my post on Friday the 13th would be about Friday the 13th. There are 52 Fridays in 2013, but only 2 of them are the 13th day of the month (September and December). To determine if [...]
Building a Number Guessing Game in PHP
Believe it or not, but the last 13 or so posts have all been leading up to this one. Generating random numbers, capturing user input, using colors on the command-line, pluralizing words, and then some are all being utilized in [...]
The Wrong Way to Save
If you've ever been to a Disney theme park you've probably seen them. People with notebooks busting at the seams with pins, wheeling and dealing with other vacationers as well as Disney cast members. These notebooks are often filled with [...]
How to Terminate a PHP Script
Terminating the execution of a script is usually one of those last ditch ways to handle an error, but it is something we do from time to time, especially if we're debugging. To terminate the execution of a script, you [...]
How to Pluralize Words with PHP
There's a good chance you've seen it before (and possibly authored it), it looks something like this "You have 1 new messages" or "There are 10 user(s) logged in". What you end up with is something that's either incorrect or [...]