PHP and its elegant features that controls web development

PHP on its way to success: At a time when the industry was dominated by Java and .Net, PHP had come up to challenge them on the battle. In early stage of its life cycle PHP was not a huge success, but with time, it received tremendous acceptance value in the industry. This is possible due to the continuous learning attitude of PHP. PHP has been undergoing several changes over time to suite the demand of the PHP developer and industry and hence it come out as a gem in the industry. Moreover, at a period when the industry was carving for a better web language, PHP turned out as a boon for the web developers; because web development process through JSP or ASP was damn tedious at that time where as PHP made it easy with its simple approach and write less do more concepts. This brought an overnight popularity of PHP developers in the industry.

PHP is a true web domain specific language: PHP can only be used for web application development; it can’t be used to develop desktop application like Java or .Net. So at a time when the industry was dominated by web applications, PHP turned out as a leader of web domain specific language. PHP developer can develop any type of websites on the fly. It can be used for agile web development process to develop enterprise standard web applications for the industry. PHP developers can develop any size of application efficiently in less time and more productivity.

It has an awesome feature i.e. Functions with Arbitrary Number of Arguments: Well, PHP has an awesome feature i.e. we can dynamically set the number of arguments for any function. Let me explain how it can be helpful. Suppose, in our web application, there is a function that needs the user to enter the arguments as per his choice; at that time, the application developer is unaware of the number of arguments that can be sent to the program. So, to handle this issue, we can use the above concept to develop our web application.

PHP is future ready: Yes! PHP is future ready; because it has all the future amenities under the hood. Technologies like HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery etc. These technologies can be used to write responsive web applications for different screen size, resolution and platforms so that the user can get similar user experience in all screen sizes. To add this, Cloud technology can be integrated by a PHP developer in the web application. With the integration of Cloud technology, PHP developers can give the users an awesome and hassle free experience without any worry for the memory storage size.

It is Open source along with its best friend MySQL: MySQL is treated as the best friend of PHP. It helps the PHP web developer in developing dynamic and data driven web applications on the fly. The best part is it is open source just like PHP. Hence we can expect an exceptional quality of software from the PHP MySQL combo. Moreover you can kick start your first web application using PHP MySQL from the first day itself without any investment.

You can get in touch with a PHP web development company India who can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide PHP web development services. If you would like to hire PHP programmers for your web development needs, please contact us Mindfire Solutions.

PHP tips to improve your programming skills

The time at which the industry was trembling with Java and .Net applications, PHP come up to the industry to challenge these giants. Moreover, that time JSP and ASP were at their peak stage and hence we can’t ignore the courage of PHP to come up as a challenger in the industry. Anyway, PHP has come up as a winner in latter stage of its life due to its learn-from-mistakes attitude. With every newer version, it becomes even more powerful and efficient. As a result, there are many frameworks get born to support PHP like Zend, Laravel, CakePHP etc. Anyway, today we will discuss few smart features and tips for PHP developers to improve the skill of programming in the industry.

Naming convention is the first step: Well, when a new web developer or PHP developer starts his career in programming; the first and most important thing is to follow Naming convention. As a good software developer, you must follow some basic rules while naming different variables, functions, class, namespace etc. Moreover, you must ensure that these names are meaningful and give adequate hint to understand their basic requirement in the program.

Proper implementation of Session and Cookie: Yes, a good web developer must implement sessions in the application. Session helps in providing continuous service to the user with proper data from database. It also ensures that privacy is maintained from the users prospective. The cookie on the other hand helps in quick web browsing. It stores user’s data in local browser and hence that will definitely help the application to recognize the user and accordingly providing user specific data to the interface.

Avoid unnecessary database connection: This is really an important tip for every web developer including a PHP developer. Sometimes, we find new PHP developers use multiple queries to fetch a set of data to ensure the data availability in the application. This is a terrific problem when you are dealing with some low memory devices like smart phones and tablets. In that case, each and every tiny load on the browser may crash the application. So, you should avoid all nonsense queries in your code to make it more efficient and optimized.

Take the help of modern technologies: As a PHP web developer, you must learn different advanced technologies like HTML5, CSS3 and JQuery etc to create enterprise standard web solutions for next generation those are not only attractive but also light weight. Light weight means optimized!! It is an essential part of any modern web application which is supposed to run on different platforms like desktop, laptop, smart phone and tablets. So, you must implement these advanced technologies in your application.

You should learn about Cloud integration: Cloud is a future generation technology. Future is relying on Cloud and so you should!! A good PHP developer is incomplete without being up-to-date. So as a good web developer you must learn different techniques to integrate Cloud in your application. It will definitely bring a smile on the face of your user while roaming within your application.

You can get in touch with a php development company India who can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide custom PHP development services. If you would like to hire php programmer for your web development needs, please contact us Mindfire Solutions.

Pros and Cons of CakePHP – The Complete List

CakePHP is hugely popular among web programmers due to its effectiveness in making web application development faster and simples. The open source PHP framework further enables developers to create modern internet apps without writing longer lines of code. Despite being written in PHP, CakePHP follows several concepts of Ruby on Rails. At the same time, it also supports web development for both PHP4 and PHP5, along with several software engineering concepts. However, you still need to consider the pros and cons of CakePHP, if you are planning to use it for building your next internet applications.

Major Advantages

• CakePHP supports several widely used software development models including Model-View-Controller (MVC). So developers can use the MVC pattern to keep the business logic and interface separate. The separation makes it easier programmers to simultaneously work on different models. Further, they can easily maintain and update the large web applications without working from the scratch.

• The code generation and scaffolding feature of CakePHP enables programmers to rapidly create prototypes and reusable code. The code reusability makes developers more productive, while reducing the overall development time. Further, they can rapidly create new PHP applications by reusing the existing code for different projects.

• Unlike other PHP development frameworks, CakePHP does not require programmers to use complex XML or YAML files. They can simply setup the database, and start application development. Also, the framework effectuates database management by automating the features. The programmers can further use the built-in validation and authentication functionality of CakePHP to avoid writing additional code.

• CakePHP also comes with a templating system that is both fast and flexible. It further allows programmers to enhance the application’s look and feel by creating custom templates. Some developers even help enterprises in designing tailor-made custom CakePHP templates within a shorter amount of time.

• Many developers find it daunting to work with standard PHP classes. While dealing with different classes, CakePHP allows programmers to directly access Core and App directories. So it becomes easier for them to define the functions of each class in a much simpler way.

• In comparison to other PHP frameworks, CakePHP comes with more innovative built-in tools to make the web applications safe and secure. The programmers can use the built-in tools to prevent SQL injection and cross site scripting (XSS) attacks. Also, the tools help developers to validate user input, and prevent form tampering and CSRF.

Significant Disadvantages

• Many users feel that documentation of CakePHP is inadequate and needs improvement. Despite being a simple and easy-to-learn, CakePHP is considered to be more complex than other PHP frameworks like CodeIgniter. So the developers have to invest both time and effort to learn various aspects of CakePHP.

• Unlike other PHP frameworks like Symfony, CakePHP does not support default routes for Fancy URLs. So while crating Fancy URLs, programmers are required to update the default routes. The feature adversely affects the efficiency of CakePHP for modern web application development.

• Some users have also highlighted the difficulties in migrating from version 2.x to 3.x of CakePHP. To become faster, CakePHP 3 does not support a number of backwards compatible changes. That is why; web programmers cannot easily switch their existing applications to the updated version of the PHP framework. However, the developers can directly use CakePHP 3 to develop applications with the new features.

Despite these limitations, CakePHP still complements the latest trends in web development. As it is an open source web application development framework, it can be used by both small and large businesses to rapidly create commercial PHP applications. However, you must not forget evaluate the pros and cons of CakePHP according to the nature and requirements of your next internet application. You can hire developers from top PHP development company India who can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide PHP application development services. If you would like to hire php programmer for your web development needs, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

Symfony framework for developers – Is it good for development?

There are a number of frameworks that are available in the market today which the developers can use to create applications at a faster pace. Symfony is one such framework that can be used to achieve this end. However, the developers are mostly unaware of its benefits that can be utilized well in developing effective solutions.

Faster and requires less memory

This is one of the benefits owing to which the developers should prefer Symfony2. From the very start it was conceived as a framework that would be fast and deliver highly effective performance. Besides delivering faster solutions, Symfony also demands less memory space.

Adaptability

The flexibility that it offers is outstanding. No matter what the developers require, Symfony can be adapted for all kinds of requirements. The dependency injector and Event Dispatcher enable it to be completely configurable where each of the bricks is entirely independent. Thus, a developer can build the framework depending on the functionalities required. Secondly, it can also be used to develop a particular functionality in a project. There is no need to develop anything or install the whole network. All the developers need is a single brick. Permanence is another factor why it is used. The company that offers Symfony is its biggest support. In addition, an impressive community has also developed around it along with various service companies investing in the framework.

Expandability

Right from the smallest brick to a whole core – herein everything is presented as a bundle or plug-in. each of this bundle is expected to add a separate functionality. These can also be reused in another project or be allowed to be shared with the rest of the community. These bundles help in altering everything within the framework. This also includes the core. Without any need for an entire configuration, the behavior of the framework can be altered.

Pro-testing framework

For unit testing this is one of the most suitable tools. It is testing-prone which makes it quite easy for isolating classes, mocking objects and injecting stub dependencies.

Perfect for complicated web applications

There is an extensive cache system in Symfony. This is easy to configure for both a new user and a PHP expert. What is important here is to decide about the size of the project. If you are developing a project of 10 pages, there is no need to employ a framework. But for the complex web applications, using PHP is not adequate. In this regard, the Symfony would be of great use.

Stable and Sustainable

Most of the major versions of this framework are supported for a span of 3 years by the company that develops it. As far as security related issues are concerned, it gets lifelong support from the parent company. To ensure better security, there are minor versions available which ensure that the API is defined by public interfaces.

Provides a comfort level

It is a functional environment that also guarantees a comfort level to the developers. By dealing with various erroneous tasks, it allows the developers to shift their focus on the actual issues within the application and authenticate their roles and enhance the productivity. The Web Debug Toolbar simplifies the development process. This also helps the development environments, native security and detailed error pages.

Easy to use

Being accessible and tremendously flexible, it even allows the beginners to feel comfortable.

Innovation is the key

Symfony is always endeavoring to bring newness to PHP. In fact, it was the first major framework to accept PHP 5.3. It also introduced the use of Dependency Injection container and the usage of Twig. The latter was later adopted by the primary CMS-es, including, Drupal and eZpublish.

Owing to such benefits it has developed as a framework that is being widely used to build major websites. There are several well reputed companies that have adopted Symfony for building solutions. You can hire developers from custom PHP development company, who can help you build web apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide PHP application development services. If you would like to hire PHP developers for your web development needs, please contact us Mindfire Solutions.

Few PHP Tools for Developers to Build Featured Website

Undoubtedly, PHP is one of the most popular programming languages that the developers use to build websites as well as web applications. These solutions are both innovative and effective. As far as websites are concerned, they are regarded as the mainstay of the Internet which almost acts as a lifeline for the online businesses. Therefore, it is obvious that under such circumstances, where people are increasingly opting for technology to expand their business, websites have become indispensable nowadays for attracting visitors. In this regard, PHP is an independent platform for the developers as it can be utilized to build dynamic websites that are packed with interesting features. Therefore, the developers are always looking for useful PHP tools with which their workflow and web related tasks become faster as well as better.

Here’s a look at some of the PHP tools that are apt for developing these kinds of websites:

ICE Coder

With the help of this tool a single code is adequate to be employed to build a website. ICE Coder is an open source that charters the developers so that they build websites in 2 modes – online and offline. This is achieved with the help of a single program on a browser. It accelerates the assessment procedure of a website on the actual web server regardless of time. In fact, immediate changes can also be introduced. Maintaining the website is also possible. All that is required is a system with inter connectivity so that the assimilation and customization is possible with online services. This helps the tool to speed up its performance.

PHP Free Chat

It is easy to use, open source application. This has a responsive layout that enables a number of users to access it from various devices (laptops, computers, mobiles, tablets, etc). In addition there are a number of built-in features that helps in building a featured website with varied aspects. The developers an include multi language chats and there is a storage option for messages as well as nicknames. AJAX is applied to ensure that the chat and nickname zone functions smoothly.

PHP FastCache

It is another open source tool that offers a free cache library. It is a solo file that the programmers utilize for caching. According to experts this is one of the best applications available for this job. It ensures high performance as well as speed that helps in mitigating the pressure on the database. It is packed with a dispersed object caching system that can hold onto the load of the database. As a result, the speed of the web pages increases by almost 1000 times.

Whoops

This is actually the legacy of the PHP developers! They have successfully developed a library that is smart, compact, tested and clean. There is a code base to deal with several exceptions. This code is suitable for all kinds of frames. It has a plain API to deal with data and find the frames that are compatible with all kinds of applications.

PHPImageWorkshop

This, again, is an open source class that uses the GD library to help the programmers to deal with images. It is similar to the software used to edit images, like, Photoshop. There are many layers that can be superposed and each layer has a separate background image. This class was considered one of the most flexible tools where innumerable images can be superimposed, cropped, rotated and resized. It is a group and layer at the same time. Besides the background image there are a stack of sub-layers as well.

DebugBar

This is a free open source app that can be integrated in any kind of PHP project to collect as well as present data. It supports AJAX requests. It also includes the generic data collectors for the popular libraries. In the footer a bar appears that has been built purely with JavaScript.

Sylius

It is free ecommerce solution that is based on Symfony2. The PHP developers can manage stores of various sizes as well as huge database of categories and products. There can be different tax rates for the products, shipping procedures and the application further integrates multi gateway payment facility.

Pico

This too is an open source CMS solution using flat files for the database that is built with PHP. There are no set up hassles and the app works immediately.

phpMyFAQ

For websites that are looking for FAQ systems this tool is apt. It is a stable application with a powerful admin interface that can deal with users, categories, see stats as well as entries. The advanced search system is equally helpful that enables the users to find the relevant replies easily. The best part is it can be customized and has an interface that supports multi language usage.

It is these PHP tools that make it apt for developing featured and creative websites. You can hire developers for your PHP website development from web development companies, who can help you build web apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide PHP development services. If you would like to hire PHP developers for your web development needs, please contact us Mindfire Solutions.

CakePHP – What Do We Know About It?

Before we get on to the details about cake PHP, let us at first know what CakePHP is all about. It is actually a web application framework that is open source and follows the customary MVC (Model View Controller) business. It is written in PHP and follows the concept of ROR. Alternately speaking, it is a PHP framework for rapid web development that generally uses certain common design patterns such as ActiveRecord, ADP or Association Data Mapping, Font Controller besides following MVC. It is basically a PHP equivalent of ROR.

The framework is extremely useful when it comes to seamlessly creating static pages, more so when it comes to creating controller for these static pages or defining action for each of them whenever needed. Therefore, technically speaking CakePHP is a foundation structure that can be used for creating web applications. The primary objective of the framework is to help the developers to work in a quick yet structured manner, with losing any flexibility.

If the task of web development was somewhat monotonous, CakePHP has taken out that element of monotony, by offering a wide range of tools for coding as well as specifying logic into the application. So let us go through the features that CakePHP comes up with:

• The framework is active as well as extremely user-friendly so that even the ones who are new in development can deal with it without any hiccup whatsoever

• It is flexible as well as compatible with PHP version 4, 5

• It comes up with integrated CRUD for database integration, it supports scaffolding of applications, helps in code generation

• It features certain build-in validations along with a request dispatcher with some clean custom URLs, routes

• It is pretty fast and it supports flexible templating with helpers for PHP syntax, AJAX, HTML forms, JavaScript and much more

• It also supports data sanitization as well as flexible caching

The USP of the framework is that it is designed to provide a tough enough base or foundation for any application. It is designed to handle each and every aspect – right from an initial request by a user, through the process of development till the final rendering of the web page in question. Again, as the framework is designed to follow the MVC principles, it allows seamless customization of the pages and extends to almost every feature of an application.

It also offers a basic organizational structure, helping in structuring of filenames as well as the names of the database tables, which in turn helps to maintain the consistency along with the logic of applications. This is a simple, yet quite powerful concept, especially in the question of maintaining the overall health of an application.

Now let us go through the basic tasks that can be done with the help of CakePHP.

Data Validation

This is an extremely vital component of any application because it helps to guarantee that the data that are used in a particular model sticks to the business rules or the terms and conditions pertaining to the application. This may include validating the user ID or password or checking out the uniqueness of the user names used.

Data Sanitization

It also helps in data sanitization. The Sanitize class that CakePHP comes up with can be utilized to free the data submitted by the users from the malicious or erroneous data and other unnecessary information. Sanitize is essentially a core library, and hence can be utilized anywhere within the code, though it is best used in models or controllers.

Error Handling

In case any unrecoverable or irretrievable error occurs in any application, it is a rather common practice to halt the processing mechanism and display the error page. For that what is needed is separate code error handling for each controller and component, which is a tedious as well as time consuming task. CakePHP saves a developer from this laborious job by pre-defining a series of error-types. One of the most common as well as useful error types is ‘Error-404’.

Debugging

It is an inseparable part of any software development cycle. Though CakePHP does not come up with any tool specifically for debugging or tools that have anything to do with Editor or IDE, it does offer a string of tools that help in debugging indirectly, though not directly; displaying whatever was running at the back end of the application. CakePHP also helps in debugging, caching, logging, testing, localization and internationalization, pagination and REST (Representational State Transfer). You can hire developers from PHP development company who can help you build web apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide PHP application development services. If you would like to discuss with our certified php developer about your web development project, please contact us Mindfire Solutions.

CodeIgniter and Its Importance to PHP

CodeIgniter (CI) is actually an open source web application framework that is designed to facilitate rapid web development. The framework is mainly used to build dynamic sites with the help of PHP.

It is extremely powerful and comes with an inbuilt code management system, which helps in providing cost effective PHP solutions besides helping in production of code that is easier to browse as well as write, thereby resulting in significant time as well as cost saving.

As it is an open source application, it is free and is readily available, it is light-weight, and extremely easy to use as well as to incorporate. Following are the features of CI, which make the application so much important when it comes to PHP development.

User Guide

One of the most significant features that make the framework so much important, is its user guide that to say the least, is extremely useful as well as quite impressive. The documentation is done in the most professional way that comes in handy for the PHP developers, especially when it comes to coding.

Simplicity

CI is user-friendly, simple, and a significant proportion of the operation is completed through library uploading. Besides, as the workings are open as well as clear, it is fairly easy to comprehend and naturally is easy to use.

Model Handling

When it comes to dealing with models, CI uses a straightforward process, thereby imitating the standard SQL queries with the use of some simple commands.

Data Validation

It also helps in data validation, which is a major aspect while dealing with models, where validation of data is done with the use of validation of class. Thus, it becomes absolutely imperative for the PHP developers to know about CodeIgniter for effective code implementation.

Other advantages that CI offers to PHP developers include:

• Easy, hassle-free, as well as seamless migration from one server to another followed by a smooth installation.

• It is extremely easy to handle and customize to meet the need of the clients

• As it is built with a framework that is MVC based, it comes with a lot of flexibility as well as easy management.

It is important for the PHP developers to know about CodeIgniter as it helps in

• Designing frameworks with footprints that are on the smaller side

• Some outstanding performance presentation

• Intensive compatibility for coming to terms with regular hosting accounts that is important when it comes to managing completely distinctive PHP versions

• Dealing with frameworks that function with practically zero configuration

• For designing a framework that will not put any restrictions while operating with certain specific secret rules of code writing.

The PHP framework of CodeIgniter helps the developers to program much faster and helps improving the performance of the custom PHP applications. CI also comes up with an array of libraries that the developers can use for implementing new value added features to a website in a seamless fashion.

Moreover, the modular approach of CI helps in easier maintainability of the applications along with seamless incorporation of the new features like:

Dynamic Instantiation: In CodeIgniter, the components get loaded and the routines are executed only upon request. The system does not make any preemptive assumptions regarding what will be required to make the system light-weight by default.

Loose Coupling: Coupling is an extent by which the system components depend upon each other. The lesser is this dependency, the more will be the flexibility and usability of the system. CI helps in this loose coupling.

Component Singularity: Singularity is a parameter that measures the extent to which the components will have a narrowly focused objective. In CI, each and every class and the functions thereof are autonomous enough so as to facilitate optimal usefulness.

If you would like to hire PHP developer from PHP development company in India who can help you build web apps within allocated budgets and time schedules, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Shopping Cart development using PHP – The easiest way to code

An effective shopping cart forms the backbone of an online business. It is the software which enables the online customers to gather the items they want to purchase. Its success depends on how well it is integrated with the payment gateways. But in order to build an effective shopping cart what tools do you need? What you need to keep in mind in this regard is that the scripting language forms the backbone of shopping cart solutions. PHP is a programming language that can execute this work effectively. It is considered one of the most versatile and the largest open source scripting language that is used nowadays. As a result, the PHP shopping carts are one of the most commonly used cart solutions for online businesses.

Easy Steps for Building the Cart

To put it simply, usually there are just a few steps that are included in PHP:

• Create a Database: This is the first step where the coders will create a list of items that will be visible to your online customers.

• Displaying or Storing Products: A page is built to display the products and another one to show the shopping cart.

• Cart Page: Finally, a cart page is developed wherein its various functionalities are included.

Beyond this there are certain features that you will find in the PHP shopping cart. There will be an option to ‘add’ or ‘delete’ products to and from the cart. It might include more than one kind of products and these can be easily compiled. The customers can also update the carts manually.

Why is PHP Chosen?

PHP stands for Personal Home Page. In 1994, it was designed for the first time for creating dynamic web pages easily and cost effectively. One of its biggest advantages is that it is easy to learn and use. Whether it is Windows, Linux or Mac, this particular language can operate easily with various operating systems.

Besides being easy to code, it performs exceptionally fast. These are some of the reasons why it is used for online business solutions. When it comes to design the shopping carts, PHP, with its serialization proves actually helpful. Serialization is generally not required in all kinds of databases, but in the earlier versions the value of an item could only be mentioned along with its type. However, the later versions solved this problem completely.

It is relatively easy to find developers for PHP programming language. In comparison, there are very few developers to be found for other languages and their charges are exorbitant. In this regard, this programming language offers a cost effective solution.

Moreover, when you apply this language the carts are more user-friendly. As a result the customers can search the products easily, fast and without any trouble whatsoever. In addition to these, they are quite secure. Security and safety are of prime importance for the eCommerce websites. The money transactions require safe payment gateways. Thus, the solutions offered by the PHP tools ensure that the customer’s data and money transaction are perfectly secure.

This programming language has been created to drive websites. The scripts, thus, are prepared in a way so that integrating them is not troublesome at all. Thus, even a person without any programming language can deal with these shopping carts. The best part is that there are no added financial burdens of hiring specialists to maintain them. This way a business will be able to save a lot of money. In return what you get is a fully integrated ecommerce data mart that is available with relationship management and customer profiling. The decisions about marketing processes will become easier and so will be the updating procedure.

Finally, it is a tough job to balance the features for a shopping cart. Too many features can actually spoil its effectiveness. The idea is to provide exactly what the business wants and nothing more. You can get in touch with a php development company India who can help you build web apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide php application development services. If you would like to hire certified php developer for your development needs, Please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

PHP Functions – List and Their Usage

PHP comes up with a string of internal or built-in functions which are all used in certain situations to fulfill certain conditions, by simply passing certain values against them. To be frank, the scripting language comes up with nearly 3000 embedded functions. Hence, it is quite impossible to discuss all of them. The language comes up with a manual, which includes a comprehensive documentation of each of them along with example code. Besides, the manual also provides a feature containing the user comments that provide valuable tips to the users. It also comes up with discussions of some common problems that are generally faced by users and documented solutions of the same. There is also a short cut to get to the manual page quickly.

PHP editors generally have the expertise of showing the built-in functions and they use a different color so that the users know that they are built-in ones.

Let us, in this article discuss some of the most important PHP functions and their usage in a comprehensive way.

Functions that define Arbitrary number of arguments

One of the most significant features of PHP is that it provides the option of defining the functions with various optional arguments. However, there is yet another option that completely allows an arbitrary number of functional arguments.

There are a number of PHP functions that come with long as well as descriptive names. Therefore, whenever it is needed to call for a particular function, it becomes really hard to name it, unless and until the user is somewhat familiar with the term and its functionality from any other source.

Glob()

This particular function is used for searching out any pre designated file or files from the database. Technically speaking, this function returns an array or a string of filenames as well as directories by matching them in accordance to a pre medicated or specified pattern. It also returns FALSE on failure to do so.

Actually, it is a more advanced or capable edition or the scandir() that also searches files by using a definite pattern.

MIU or Memory Usage Information

memory-get-usage()

PHP comes up with a typical garbage collector along with a memory manager that is pretty complex in structure as well as functionality. Hence, the amount or extent of memory that is used in a particular script can fluctuate when the script in question is being executed. Hence, the function ‘memory-get-usage()’ can be used to collect the extent of current memory usage at any given point in time.

memory-get_usage()

This particular function is used for getting the highest memory value that is used at any point in time.

Information for CPU Usage

getrusage()

This is another function that is designed to return an associative array that contains data that is returned from a system call. All the entries associated with this function are accessible with the use of their associated documented field names.

Magic Constants

PHP also features eight ‘magic constants’ that are pretty useful, especially when it comes to fetching the current number of the line, current file path, directory path, current trait, the name of the function called, name of the class, method name and the namespace.

These are actually some predefined constants for any script that it runs. Majority of these 8 constants comes up with various extensions and cane used only when those particular extensions are available, either through the process of dynamic loading or simply because they have been assembled or compiled in the script in question. Hence, from that point of view, these constants can well be termed as functions.

Generation of unique IDs

There are instances that demand generation of a string that is absolutely unique. For this the md5() can be used, though this particular function was not developed for this reason. However, even though the strings are ideally unique, they at times come up with first few characters that are similar to other strings, mainly because these strings are all related to server time. Hence, in order to minimize the chance of duplication, a prefix can be passed or created and the second parameter can be added to increase the entropy.

serialize() and unserialize()

As and when the need of storing a complex variable in a text file or a database arises, there is no requirement of converting the objects or arrays into formatted strings. PHP comes up with a couple of extremely valuable functions – ‘serialize()’ and ‘unserialize()’ that serialize the variables or revert the serialization if and when needed.

String Compression

gzcompress() and gzuncompress()

Generally ‘zip’ option is used for file compression. However, when it comes to compressing or decompressing loose strings in PHP, the two functions – gzcompress() and gzuncompress() can be used respectively.

As mentioned at the start of this article, there are innumerable functions that PHP is equipped with. However, these are some of the most popular, useful as well as widely used functions that make the life of the developers easier.You can get in touch with a php development company in India who can help you build web apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide php application development services. If you would like to hire certified php developer for your development needs, Please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

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PHP to Develop an E-Commerce Site – Should We Go Ahead or Not?

The right ecommerce site can make a huge difference to any business. In addition to increasing online sales and revenues, the website will further help the business in retaining valuable customers. That is why; enterprises often find it daunting to choose the right platform to gauge their business online. If you are exploring options to build your ecommerce website, it is a great idea to choose PHP.

Like other programming languages, PHP is also effective in optimizing your website’s look, feel and performance. But the technology allows you complete the project rapidly by availing navigational tools, content management systems, libraries and extensions. At the same time, you also have option to choose from widely used PHP ecommerce frameworks like Magento, X-Cart, osCommerce and Zen Cart to create and run your online store without putting any extra time and effort.

Why Use PHP Frameworks to Develop an E-Commerce Site

Add Unlimited Items and Catalogs: Once you create the ecommerce site, it has to be updated frequently to include new products and catalogs. The PHP frameworks make it easier for you to add as many catalogs you want without any hassle. Thus, the existing product list can be updated frequently to complement the expansion or growth of your online store.

Add Many Manufacturers and Brands: There are also chances that your web store has to deal with products launched by different manufacturers or under different brands. So the website needs to be updated to showcase all these brands. The widely used PHP frameworks allow you to add new manufacturers and brands without any restriction.

Support for Multiple Currencies: The web store allows you to sell products to customers residing in different countries and regions. So you have to look for a payment system that supports multiple currencies. In addition to allowing customers to see the price of a product in a specific currency, the website must allow them to pay in their own currency. The PHP frameworks enable you to add multiple currencies to the online shop. As the customers have option to pay without any hassle, the website will help in increasing your online sales.

Integrate Major Payment Gateway: To optimize the performance of your online store, you have to use one of the most widely used and popular payment gateways and online payment processor. PHP frameworks make it easier to integrate third-party applications to the website. Thus, you can always deliver richer user experience by incorporating a widely used payment gateways and online payment processing system.

Administrator Panel: An ecommerce website also needs to be updated frequently to manage both product listing and prices. So you have to explore ways to administer the web store without deploying a fulltime website admin. The PHP frameworks make it easier for you to manage the product listing and prices through an easy-to-use admin panel. The admin panel can be further customized by the developer according to the way you want to manage the ecommerce website.

Option to Post Customer Reviews: You can always enhance the credibility and reputation of your web store by allowing customers to post reviews and comments. The product reviews and ratings can be displayed on your website to gain the trust of new customers. The PHP frameworks make it easier for you to allow customers to post reviews, and showcase the reviews to new customers to gain their trust.

PHP Online Forum: While creating an ecommerce site with PHP, a developer can avail assistance from several PHP web development forums. As the technology is used widely to create ecommerce portals, the developer can avail relevant help to complete the project rapidly. At the same time, the website administrators can use PHP scripts to monitor the activities of website visitors, and take relevant action to convert them into customers.

Unlike other technologies, PHP is both open source and free. Further, you have option to create the ecommerce portal by using a number of open source PHP frameworks. Thus, PHP will further make it easier for your business to launch and run a web store without investing a lot of money.

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