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How to Output Variables within Strings with PHP
Displaying strings isn't that hard, you just use echo followed by the string in question. But that only gets us so far, what about when we need to use variables inside of the string? Luckily there's a ton of different [...]
Why Limit the Format of a Password?
I've been moving towards using longer and longer passwords. When I say longer, I mean upwards of over 20 characters, mixed case, numbers and special characters. These longer passwords make me feel a bit more secure, especially when I can [...]
How to Use Colors in Command-line PHP Output
Nothing spruces up command-line output the way colors do. Just like when you're customizing your [Bash] prompt, you can use color codes in strings to colorize your output. Keep in mind, these colors will only work on the command-line and [...]
How to Compare Numeric Variables with PHP
Comparing numeric values is a very common programming task. Which number is greater? is lesser? equal? In PHP like any C-style language, you can do these comparisons with a simple if ( ... ) { ... } statement: if ($var1 [...]
How to check if a variable is an integer with PHP
PHP has a variety of functions and approaches to determine if a variable is a number and/or an integer. The problem is that many of the straight forward approaches can result in false positives depending on how they react to [...]
Simplifying Single Server Deployments
Last week I discussed the importance of version control for individuals but something I didn't touch on was how version control systems can be used to simplify and/or automate deployments. I've been through the different setups out there, using plain [...]
How to Strip Whitespace from a String with PHP
Whitespace, it can make all the difference in the world when attempting to determine if a string is empty or not. Anytime you are working with user input I recommend stripping whitespace from both sides of the string. When stripping [...]
How to Increment / Decrement a Number with PHP
Incrementing and decrementing a variable can be accomplished with C-style pre- and post-operators. The pre-operators return the value after it as been incremented or decremented, post- return the value before. Let's take a look at incrementing first: $i = 1 [...]
While you were out - while loops in PHP
while loops are considered the simplest type of loop in PHP-dom. Their purpose is to continue to execute until a condition has been met. Let's look at an example related to the title, a pseudo-script that will collect messages while [...]
Version Control for Individuals
I find with a lot of folks I interact with, version control is considered something that you use when you are working on a team with multiple contributors. As an individual that is usually the sole contributor of my own [...]