$ php -version

Check Linux Version

$ cat /etc/*-release (or redhat-release)

Create a repo file with the content given below. As you can note, we are looking for package upgrade related to php only.

$ vi /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-phpupgrade.repo

# CentOS5-Upgrade:
# This repository is a proving grounds for packages on their way to CentOSPlus and CentOS Extras.
# They may or may not replace core CentOS packages, and are not guaranteed to function properly.
# These packages build and install, but are waiting for feedback from testers as to
# functionality and stability. Packages in this repository will come and go during the
# development period, so it should not be left enabled or used on production systems without due
# consideration.
[cent5-upgrade]
name=CentOS5 Upgrade
baseurl=http://dev.centos.org/centos/$releasever/testing/$basearch/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=http://dev.centos.org/centos/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-testing
includepkgs=php*

Update the repository

$ yum update

Restart Apache server

$ service http restart

Check the PHP version that is installed

$ php -version

Check the package repository

$ rpm -qa | grep php

Zend’s official website and Zend casts gives detailed easy to use examples.

Step 1: Decide where you want the helper class for the controllers to reside inside the application folder. For this example, let us create a folder hierarchy under “application” folder

» application/controllers/Helper

Step 2: We will be creating a helper called “Printdata” in this example. For that to happen, we need to register the path for the helper file inside bootstrap file.

<?php
protected function _initControllerHelpers(){Zend_Controller_Action_HelperBroker::addPath(APPLICATION_PATH . '/controllers/Helper', 'Hellohelper');	}

As you can notice “Hellohelper” is the name that will be prefixed to the helper class (like Hellohelper_Printdata) that we will create under /controllers/Helper.

Step 3: Go inside the folder application/controllers/Helper and create a file called “Printdata.php”. We will write some code for testing our action helper.

<?php
class Hellohelper_Printdata extends Zend_Controller_Action_Helper_Abstract{

	public function testPrint($passData){
		if($passData != ""){
			echo "Testing Printdata from action helper. Welcome ". $passData;
		}else{
			echo "Testing action helper";
		}
	} 	

}

Step 3: Now access the zend action helper in one of Zend’s controller file using the command

	$this->_helper->Printdata->testPrint("Lorem ipsum");

Download from Code Google

When the excel reader is run on PHP 5.3, below mentioned deprecated warning messages gets shown.

i) Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated

Remove & from the line below

$this->_ole =& new OLERead();

and have

$this->_ole = new OLERead();

instead.

ii) Function split() is deprecated

Function split() is deprecated and we can use explode() instead of that.

$parts = split(“;”,$format);

change it to

$parts = explode(“;”,$format);

i) Check if the path to PHP executable is set. You can check this by executing php -version from command prompt.

ii) Move zf.bat (or zf.sh) and zf.php which will be present in the Zend Framework’s bin folder to the php’s bin folder (where php.ini resides)

iii) Move \path\to\znedframework\library to the location identified by “include_path” variable

One way to identify the include_path variable
-> php -i

Other way is to open the php.ini file to identify the location. You can also append the path to zend framework’s library to the include path variable within php.ini file.

For Windows users, you can add an environment variable (system variable) that would point to the Zend Framework’s library folder and name the variable “ZEND_TOOL_INCLUDE_PATH”

If the configuration has been done correctly then you should be able to get a positive response when you execute

-> zf show version
-> zf –help

If you think, that you will need the necessary feature to upload large files then there are two ways by which you can enable this feature.

i) Edit the physical file and have the line
ini_set(“memory_limit”,”20M”);

ii) Edit php.ini and add the following line. You need to restart the apache/IIS server once php.ini file is modified.
memory_limit=32M

Below is a slight modification of the default architecture where by you can organize separate model-view-controllers for different projects. Other option is to organize project specific files under modules folder.

|– /sites
|–
`– Bootstrap.php
|– applicationONE
| | |– configs
| | `– application.ini
| |– controllers
| | `– ErrorController.php
| | `– IndexController.php
| |– modules (application specific modules)
| |– models
| `– views
| |– helpers
| `– scripts
| |– error
| |– index
|– library
| |– Zend
| |– Pear (Other libraries)
|– /var/www (public access directory – web root of the server will be set to this directory )
| `– .htaccess
| `– index.php
|– images
|– scripts
|– css

Refer to Zend’s Application Directory Layout for additional information

Zend: OLD Layout Architecture (Deprecated)

Zend: NEW Layout Architecture

At the time of writing it was 1.10.2 available at Zend 1.10.2

$ pwd
/tmp

$ wget http://framework.zend.com/releases/ZendFramework-1.10.2/ZendFramework-1.10.2.tar.gz

$ mkdir /opt/zendframework
$ tar -C /opt/zendframework -zxvf ZendFramework-1.10.2.tar.gz
$ cd /opt/zendframework

Create a symbolic link to the downloaded zend framework release in order to help ease maintaining different releases

$ ln -s ZendFramework-1.10.2.tar.gz currentzend

Edit php.ini to include the path to the symbolic link created for zend release

$ vi /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

; UNIX: “/path1:/path2″
include_path = “.:/opt/zendframework/currentzend”

In order to do command line execution in zend, we need to set up the PHP CLI by again editing php.ini for the cli

$ vi /etc/php5/cli/php.ini
; UNIX: “/path1:/path2″
include_path = “.:/opt/zendframework/currentzend”

For all users, set the path to Zend’s bin directory
$ vi ~/.bashrc

and add the line
PATH=$PATH:/opt/zendframework/currentzend/bin

Restart apache for the changes to take effect
$ /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

To check if the changes take place as expected, type
$ zf.sh show version
and you should get
Zend Framework Version 1.10.2

Now, we move into setting up Zend framework

$ cd /var/www
$ zf.sh create project myzend

This will set up the MVC zend structure. Copy the Zend folder into your new project “myzend”

$ cp -r /opt/zendframework/currentzend/library/Zend /var/www/myzend/library/Zend

Now go to your project to test if the installation was successful by typing
http://localhost/myzend/public/

This should open up the welcome page to zend framework.

BOM stands for Byte Order Mark (also known as ZERO WIDTH NON-BREAKING SPACE) appearing at the beginning of a data stream to define the byte order (whether it is little endian or big endian). BOM is to indicate that the file is Unicode based.

Possible problem caused by Byte Order Mark
In IE6, it will send the dispaly into quirks mode with its presence before “<DOCTYPE …”

How to check the presence of BOM?
View the source code of the page that does not display correctly in a user agent. Or, open the file in the editor which does not support UTF encoding to see the BOM’s signature on the files.

Suggestion
If the user-agent gives problem when you program for multi-lingual websites, check the editor settings to see what format is being used for saving program files. Notepad++ has the option to convert files to UTF and to UTF without BOM. Use the appropriate settings to convert your files.

A character set related tutorial on W3C site can be found here

Byte Order Mark on Wiki

Article on PHP and UTF

My preference is to add the PEAR library to the “vendors” folder and to modify the app_controller to have the PEAR path included through it.

if( file_exists(VENDORS.’Pear’)){
ini_set(‘include_path’, ini_get(‘include_path’) . PATH_SEPARATOR . PEAR);
}

Above solution suggested at CakePHP’s trac

Depending on the library that you want to get included in the programs, add the library to the respective view

App::import(‘vendor’, ‘XML_Feed_Parser’, array(‘file’ => ‘../vendors/pear/XML/Feed/Parser.php’));

To learn more about the PEAR library click here

If you are beginner, the following link will help you tread with the library usage PEAR Manual

Installation instructions clearly walks through the steps for PEAR configuration. There may be cases where you may want to use PEAR libraries for specific projects only in which case you can install PEAR library for that specific purpose. To use it in projects, PEAR path should be set in php.ini settings or should be included in the project configuration’s physical path.