How to install Composer, PHPUnit in Ubuntu

Composer and PHPUnit packed with phar, so we need only append these lines into ~/.bashrc:

# change location to your phpunit.phar
alias composer=~/bin/composer/composer.phar
alias phpunit=~/bin/phpunit/phpunit.phar

We also install composer this way:

sudo curl -sS http://getcomposer.org/installer | php
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Check them installed or not?

phpunit --version
composer --version

Data structures in Python and PHP

Remember that PHP use the array language for all list, hash, set, tuple... types.

1. List

In Python, to create a list, we put a number of expressions in square brackets. In PHP we usually use the array language construct.
For example the Python code snippet:

a = ['Python', 'PHP']

is equivalent to following PHP

$a = array('Python', 'PHP');

Note that PHP 5.3 introduces declaring PHP list with using square bracket syntax:

$a = ['Python', 'PHP'];

2. Hastable

Some times called associative arrays, dictionaries, or maps. A hash is an un-ordered group of key-value pairs. The keys are usually unique strings.

In Python we use brace bracket to declare a hastable type.

a = {}

For example:

a = {1: 'hello', 'lang': 'Python'}

In PHP we declare:

$a = array(1 => 'hello', 'lang' => 'Python'); // or $a = [1 => 'hello', 'lang' => 'Python']

3. Set

We use PHP array key to represent a set item because the key is unique. For example:

$_set = array();
$_set['java'] = 1;
$_set['python'] = 2;
$_set['php'] = 3;

In Python we use curly braces to initialize set. For example:

my_set = {'java', 'python', 'php'} #since 2.7

or

my_set = set(['java', 'python', 'php'])

CLI programming with PHP

Basically, to write cli program with PHP we just use $argv ($argv is enough, $argc - if necessary). $argv contains an array of all the arguments passed to the script when running from the command line.

for($i = 1; $i < $argc; ++$i) {
    echo $argv[$i]. "\n";
}

In addition, if we 'd expect to get arguments passed like option1=value1

$ php cli_program.php opt1=val1 opt2=val2

we can parse the command line arguments into $_GET by using parse_str() function. <!--php parse_str( implode( '&', array_slice($argv, 1) ), $_GET ); foreach($_GET as $k =--> $v) { echo sprintf("[$k]=$v\n"); } for($i = 1; $i < $argc; ++$i) { echo $argv[$i]. "\n"; } ?> Example:

Enhance PHP source code by using heredoc

Heredoc helps our code easily mantainable. It is really useful for multi-line strings.
We will write our code like:

instead of using concatenation-dot syntax such as:

$db->query(
 "CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `users ` ( "
 . "`id`   int NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, "
 . "`email`  varchar(255) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL, "
 . "`usr`   varchar(255) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL, "
 . "`pwd`   varchar(255) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL, "
 . "PRIMARY KEY (`id`) "
 .");"
);

Related topic StackOverflow
Heredoc reference here

Create PHP/Laravel authentication APIs with Firebase PHP-JWT

On all PHP/Laravel projects (SPA apps) I always use Firebase/PHP-JWT to create our authentication APIs for mobile apps or javascript apps.
Firstly, we include Firebase/PHP-JWT to our projects by adding & downloading dependencies:

composer require firebase/php-jwt

When user login via AJAX call, we need response to client a token (jwt).

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Validator;
use Config;
use Hash;
use Log;
use App\User;
use \Firebase\JWT\JWT;
use \Firebase\JWT\ExpiredException;

class AuthController extends Controller
{
    protected function jwt(User $user)
    {
        $payload = array(
            'sub'   => $user->id,
            'iat'   => time(),
            'exp'   => time() + 60*60
        );
        return JWT::encode($payload, Config::get('app.jwt-secret-key'));
    }

    public function login(Request $req)
    {
        $validator = Validator::make($req->all(), array(
            'email' => 'required|email|min:4|max:255',
            'password'  => 'required|min:8|max:80'
        ));

        if ($validator->fails()) {
            return response()->json(['error' => $validator->errors()], 400);
        }

        $user = User::where('email', '=', $req->input('email'))->first();

        if (!$user) {
            return response()->json(['error' => 'Your email not exists'], 401);
        }

        if (Hash::check($req->input('password'), $user->password)) {
            return response()->json(['jwt' => $this->jwt($user)], 200);
        } else {
            return response()->json(['error' => 'Wrong passwd'], 401);
        }
    }
}

Method jwt(User $user) return a string called token. Basically on authentication we create and store a token locally on client (browser, smart phone device). Then every time we make a call to the server, we check that token and ensure the user is who they say they are.

The routes:

Route::group(array('prefix' => 'api'), function() {
    Route::post('auth/register', 'AuthController@register');
    Route::post('auth/login', 'AuthController@login');
    Route::post('auth/user', 'AuthController@user'); // response returns logged user
});

Corresponding user() method:

    /**
     * return authenticated user
     * return NULL if not authenticated
    **/
    public function user(Request $req, $nullOnFail = false)
    {
        try {
            list($jwtType, $jwt) = explode(' ', $req->header('Authorization'));
        } catch(\ErrorException $e) {
            if ($nullOnFail)
                return null;
            return response()->json(['error' => 'Can not parse Authorization header'], 400);
        }
        if ($jwt) {
            try {
                $credentials = JWT::decode($jwt, Config::get('app.jwt-secret-key'), ['HS256']);
            } catch(ExpiredException $e) {
                if ($nullOnFail)
                    return $nullOnFail;
                return response()->json(['error' => 'jwt_expired'], 400);
            } catch(\Exception $e) {
                if ($nullOnFail)
                    return $nullOnFail;
                return response()->json(['error' => 'An error while decoding jwt'], 400);
            }

            $user = User::where('id', '=', get_object_vars($credentials)['sub'])->first();
            if ($nullOnFail)
                return $user;
            return response()->json(['user' => $user], 200);
        }
        return response()->json(['error' => 'No jwt attached'], 401);
    }

How to write an internet forum based on Laravel and AngularJs? (part 1)

How to write RESTful APIs in "Vanilla" PHP?

PHP supports them native. In a certain PHP, I have to code in "pure PHP", no RESTful APIs library/engine provided. So I decided to write a file called api.php to handle all API request. I used this pattern

if ($grabber->method() === 'GET') {
    // define your APIs here
    echo json_encode(array('Appl RESTful APIs'), JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE);
    exit(0);

} else if ($grabber->method() === 'POST') {
    // define your APIs here

} else if ($grabber->method() === 'PUT') {
    // define your APIs here

} else if ($grabber->method() === 'DELETE') {
    // define your APIs here

}

You can see the api.php at Github

A simple way to debug php apps

In certain PHP project, I have to work with a "hand made" framework (by other). There are many variables I want to know its value (for debugging). I really do not want to embed 3rd logging frameworks such as monolog. I use error_log (a built-in PHP function) for this task.

$str = "our message";
error_log(__FILE__. $str);

And we see result in /var/log/apache2/error.log (by default).
Reference: error_log PHP reference

How to use Bower as frontend dependencies manager for web project based on Laravel 5.x?

1. Install bower globally

$ npm install -g bower

2. We need a bower.json file to get started. The following command will create a file called bower.json.

$ bower init

Or we can create manually in the root of your directory with the following content:

{
  "name": "your-project"
}

3. Add .bowerrc
By default Bower installs into /bower_components, but we want our dependencies in public directory. Create a file named .bowerrc in our root directory with following content:

{
  "directory": "public/bower"
} 

4. Install our front-end dependencies. For example:

$ bower install angular --save
$ bower install jquery --save

Some Related topics:
https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/laravel/assets-not-accessible-laravel-51