PHP – Alex Arriaga

alex-arriaga April 19, 2016

Could not open input file: composer.phar error in Symfony 2. SOLVED.

Enterprise Development, Mac OSX, Operating Systems, PHP, Symfony No Reply

This is a common issue that is related with a bad installation of our favoritte PHP package manager: Composer. Let’s fix it:

Open your terminal and run following comand in order to get the latest version of Composer:

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

1	curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer \| php

I recommend you to move the composer.phar file to a global “bin” directoy, in my case (OS X) the path is:

mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer.phar

1	mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer.phar

Create an alias for easy access:

alias composer='/usr/local/bin/composer.phar'

1	alias composer='/usr/local/bin/composer.phar'

If everything is ok, now it is time to verify our Composer version:

composer --version

1	composer --version

That’s it! Start making great Symfony 2 projects 🙂

alex-arriaga October 6, 2015

CakePHP is losing search parameters when using pagination SOLVED

CakePHP, PHP, Web Development 2 Replies

The problem

Imagine we have a custom form to search for purchases done between two dates; so we have a simple action in a controller that takes the start and end date and create a set of conditions for the paginate() method, but… for some reason once we click on next page we are loosing the conditions to make the search.

The solution

A simple solution for saving the search parameters is just to store them in a session variable; following next algorithm:

	// START: We check if the conditions for search already exist
	$this->conditions = array();
	if($this->Session->check('conditions')){
        $this->conditions = $this->Session->read('conditions');
	}
	// END: Check

    // Normal POST request  
	if ($this->request->is('post')) {
		$data = $this->request->data;

		// We get the search parameters
		$fromDate = $data['Purchase']['FromDate'];
		$toDate = $data['Purchase']['ToDate'];

        // We create our conditions (this syntax can be improved)
		$conditions = "Purchase.date_delivered >= " 
                        . "'" . $fromDate . "'" 
                        . " AND Purchase.date_delivered <= " . "'" . $toDate . "'";

        // Passing conditions to a property
		$this->conditions = array ($conditions);


        // START: Saving conditions in a session variable
		$this->Session->write('conditions',$this->conditions);
		// END: Saving
		
        // Doing the normal pagination stuff
        $this->paginate['conditions'] = $this->conditions;
        $purchases = $this->paginate();
        $this->set('purchases',$purchases);

	else { // Pagination request (GET)
		$this->Purchase->recursive = 0;
		$this->paginate['conditions'] = $this->conditions; // We use the conditions stored previously
		// Doing the normal pagination stuff
        $purchases = $this->paginate();
        $this->set('purchases',$purchases);
	}

// START: We check if the conditions for search already exist

$this->conditions = array();

if($this->Session->check('conditions')){

$this->conditions = $this->Session->read('conditions');

}

// END: Check

// Normal POST request

if ($this->request->is('post')) {

$data = $this->request->data;

// We get the search parameters

$fromDate = $data['Purchase']['FromDate'];

$toDate = $data['Purchase']['ToDate'];

// We create our conditions (this syntax can be improved)

$conditions = "Purchase.date_delivered >= "

. "'" . $fromDate . "'"

. " AND Purchase.date_delivered <= " . "'" . $toDate . "'";

// Passing conditions to a property

$this->conditions = array ($conditions);

// START: Saving conditions in a session variable

$this->Session->write('conditions',$this->conditions);

// END: Saving

// Doing the normal pagination stuff

$this->paginate['conditions'] = $this->conditions;

$purchases = $this->paginate();

$this->set('purchases',$purchases);

else { // Pagination request (GET)

$this->Purchase->recursive = 0;

$this->paginate['conditions'] = $this->conditions; // We use the conditions stored previously

// Doing the normal pagination stuff

$purchases = $this->paginate();

$this->set('purchases',$purchases);

}

And that’s it! Now you have your search parameters working with pagination.

Enjoy!

alex-arriaga May 15, 2015

SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate SOLVED

GNU/Linux, Mac OSX, Operating Systems, PHP, Web Development No Reply

The issue

Today I was trying to consume an external video API for streaming a set of videos; so I got the code for the PHP source, create all my configuration but when I tried to get the actual data from the external server via cURL; I was obtaining nothing; so, in order to get the error’s message, this is what I did:

var_dump(curl_error($ch));

1	var_dump(curl_error($ch));

Which basically gets the error after the connection. The message was the following one:

SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate

The solution

1) Download the certificate from http://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert.pem

2) Create a folder under your home:

mkdir /Users/alex/ssl

1	mkdir /Users/alex/ssl

3) Copy or move the file with the certificate you just downloaded:

mv /Users/alex/Downloads/cacert.pem /Users/alex/ssl

1	mv /Users/alex/Downloads/cacert.pem /Users/alex/ssl

4) Open your php.ini and look for this directive curl.cainfo (the path should vary, depending on your system or meta-package you are using: WAMP, XAMPP, AMPPS have different paths).

[curl]
; A default value for the CURLOPT_CAINFO option. This is required to be an
; absolute path.
curl.cainfo =

[curl]

; A default value for the CURLOPT_CAINFO option. This is required to be an

; absolute path.

curl.cainfo =

5) Type there you path to the certificate; for example in my case, this was the configuration I did:

curl.cainfo = /Users/alex/ssl/cacert.pem

1	curl.cainfo = /Users/alex/ssl/cacert.pem

6) Restart your Apache.

7) Enjoy!

alex-arriaga April 10, 2015

Solving Drupal error: PDOException: SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 2006 MySQL server has gone away

Databases, Drupal, GNU/Linux, Mac OSX, MySQL, Operating Systems, PHP, Web Development, Windows No Reply

The problem

After downloading a Drupal project I am working on, and importing its database I got this kind of message related with a PDO Exception:

Additional uncaught exception thrown while handling exception.

PDOException: SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 2006 MySQL server has gone away: SELECT s.lid, t.translation, s.version FROM {locales_source} s LEFT JOIN {locales_target} t ON s.lid = t.lid AND t.language = :language WHERE s.source = :source AND s.context = :context AND s.textgroup = 'default'; Array ( [:language] => es [:source] => Configure how content input by users is filtered, including allowed HTML tags. Also allows enabling of module-provided filters. [:context] => ) in locale() (line 720 of /Applications/AMPPS/www/sites/drupal/modules/locale/locale.module).

Solution

This is an issue related with the MySQL configuration, for solving it,

1) Go to your MySQL configuration file: my.cnf. In my case that file is in /Applications/AMPPS/conf (I use AMPPS on OS X Yosemite).

2) Look for max_allowed_packet parameter and increase it as in this example (you will usually find this parameter twice in my.cnf file).

// My default value
max_allowed_packet = 1M

// The new value
max_allowed_packet = 256M

// My default value

max_allowed_packet = 1M

// The new value

max_allowed_packet = 256M

3) Restart your MySQL server.

I hope you find this post useful, see you next time!

alex-arriaga February 3, 2015

Learning Drupal from scratch – Part 1 (in Spanish)

Drupal, PHP, Web Development No Reply

Drupal is becoming in one of the most used Content Management Systems (CMS) all over the world, because it is a really robust and secure platform for creating contents and publishing to the web.

So, we decided to start teaching this kind of courses in our new e-learning platform: http://webtraining.mx/. These videos were created by Manuel Encarnación and I to all the web-development community.

BTW, you can download all the source code for the practices in our github account: https://github.com/webtrainingmx

It doesn’t matter if you are an expert in other platforms like JavaEE, .NET, etc. you could love this CMS if you start using it. So, here is the first part of this course, hope you enjoy it!

This is a video with Drupal 7, since version 8 is still in development.

alex-arriaga September 25, 2014

Introduction to Joomla! CMS – Session 1 (in spanish)

Joomla, Web Development No Reply

Why should I use a CMS?

When you start to create websites for information spreading or marketing purposes, one of the easiest and -probably- the best way to do it, is by using a Content Management System (CMS).

Why? Well, let me tell you some points about it:

SEO Friendly URLs
Modular and extensible
Easy user and group administration
Permission (privilegies) system
Template/theming support
Wizards based installation and upgrade
Minimal server requirements
Admin panel with multiple language support
Content hierarchy with unlimited depth and size
Components/modules for file managing with upload capabilities
Forums support (usually a huge community behind the scenes)
Some of then are open source (Drupal, Joomla!, WordPress)

How can I start?

Well, of course the official documentation helps a lot, but… sometimes is not as useful as we wanted at the beginning… so, here you have some videos about Joomla! I hope you find them a good starting point.

Video 1

During this video you are going to learn what is Joomla! when and why you should use a CMS. This course is focused on explain the necessary concepts about how Joomla! works, limitations and advantages, you don’t need to know how to program to take this course, the only thing you need is a little time.

This is a video with Joomla! 2.5 version stuff, Joomla! 3 videos are coming

alex-arriaga May 12, 2014

Warning: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system’s timezone settings in CakePHP SOLVED

CakePHP, PHP, Web Development No Reply

If you are trying to run the CakePHP console from your command line, probably you are obtaining a warning related with the system’s timezone, that is a normal behavior if your web server doesn’t have a timezone configured correctly. Let’s see an example about this and how to solve it.

Problem

Warning: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/juan-nuevo/lib/Cake/Cache/CacheEngine.php on line 60

Warning: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/juan-nuevo/lib/Cake/Cache/CacheEngine.php on line 60

Solution

Go to the core.php file in your CakePHP project, something like this: YOUR_SITE/app/Config/core.php
Search for next line:

// date_default_timezone_set('UTC');

1	// date_default_timezone_set('UTC');

Once you find the line, uncomment it and set your timezone, for example in my case I am going to use “America/Mexico_City”. Find more information about timezones in this link: https://php.net/manual/en/timezones.php

date_default_timezone_set('America/Mexico_City');

1	date_default_timezone_set('America/Mexico_City');

That’s it!

Be happy with your code!

alex-arriaga April 20, 2014

“Error in exception handler” in first installation of Laravel framework – SOLVED

Laravel, PHP, Web Development 5 Replies

Last week, I started to learn how to Lavarel 4 works in order to compare it with other frameworks that I know like: CakePHP and CodeIgniter. First thing that I loved about Laravel is that it works with PHP Composer, that is a great point for Laravel.

But well, after running my first installation of this framework I obtained and error, which I explain in following lines:

Problem

I was getting this error:

Error in exception handler.

1	Error in exception handler.

Sometimes the error you are looking for is hidden behind the scenes, so you will need to drill down to figure out what is the actual problem, that is so important: remember the right way to solve something is, first of all, knowing what you are trying to solve…

Trying to find the “real” problem to give a solution

Go to app/config/app.php
Modify line to enable debug mode: ‘debug’ => true,
In my case there was a problem with permissions to create log files (laravel.log)

Error in exception handler: The stream or file "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/laravel/first/app/storage/logs/laravel.log" could not be opened: failed to open stream: Permission denied in /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/laravel/first/bootstrap/compiled.php:8419

1	Error in exception handler: The stream or file "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/laravel/first/app/storage/logs/laravel.log" could not be opened: failed to open stream: Permission denied in /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/laravel/first/bootstrap/compiled.php:8419

After that, I received a new exception:

file_put_contents(/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/laravel/first/app/storage/sessions/7b1ba46df9eaa9ca22a5c5cd1529956266a30c32): failed to open stream: Permission denied

1	file_put_contents(/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/laravel/first/app/storage/sessions/7b1ba46df9eaa9ca22a5c5cd1529956266a30c32): failed to open stream: Permission denied

This is clearly an error with permissions to write inside of app/storage/sessions, so a simple chmod command solved that.

You can find more information about Laravel error and logs in this link: http://laravel.com/docs/errors

And that’s it!

Be happy with your code!

alex-arriaga April 9, 2014

CakePHP Database connection “Mysql” is missing, or could not be created in CakePHP Console SOLVED

CakePHP, Databases, Mac OSX, MySQL, Operating Systems, PHP, Web Development No Reply

Today, I spent some time helping a partner of mine trying to figure out how to enable and use the CakePHP console in Mac OS + XAMPP (Mac OS version of course), so, after searching on the internet what was going on, I realized there was a problem with the unix_socket for MySQL because Mac OS didn’t recognize this parameter automatically, so here is how I solved this issue, I hope this help you a lot.

Problem

CakePHP Database connection “Mysql” is missing, or could not be created

1	CakePHP Database connection “Mysql” is missing, or could not be created

Error: Database connection "Mysql" is missing, or could not be created.
#0 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Model/Datasource/DboSource.php(260): Mysql->connect()
#1 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Model/ConnectionManager.php(105): DboSource->__construct(Array)
#2 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/Command/Task/ModelTask.php(927): ConnectionManager::getDataSource('default')
#3 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/Command/Task/ModelTask.php(864): ModelTask->getAllTables('default')
#4 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/Command/Task/ModelTask.php(954): ModelTask->listAll('default')
#5 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/Command/BakeShell.php(150): ModelTask->getName('default')
#6 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/Shell.php(437): BakeShell->all()
#7 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/ShellDispatcher.php(207): Shell->runCommand('all', Array)
#8 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/ShellDispatcher.php(66): ShellDispatcher->dispatch()
#9 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/cake.php(49): ShellDispatcher::run(Array)
#10 {main}

Error: Database connection "Mysql" is missing, or could not be created.

#0 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Model/Datasource/DboSource.php(260): Mysql->connect()

#1 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Model/ConnectionManager.php(105): DboSource->__construct(Array)

#2 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/Command/Task/ModelTask.php(927): ConnectionManager::getDataSource('default')

#3 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/Command/Task/ModelTask.php(864): ModelTask->getAllTables('default')

#4 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/Command/Task/ModelTask.php(954): ModelTask->listAll('default')

#5 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/Command/BakeShell.php(150): ModelTask->getName('default')

#6 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/Shell.php(437): BakeShell->all()

#7 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/ShellDispatcher.php(207): Shell->runCommand('all', Array)

#8 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/ShellDispatcher.php(66): ShellDispatcher->dispatch()

#9 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/projects/site/lib/Cake/Console/cake.php(49): ShellDispatcher::run(Array)

#10 {main}

Solution (in Mac OSX + XAMPP)

Adding the MySQL socket to YOUR_SITE/app/Config/database.php

'unix_socket' => '/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/var/mysql/mysql.sock'

1	'unix_socket' => '/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/var/mysql/mysql.sock'

This is how my database.php file looks like:

class DATABASE_CONFIG {

	public $default = array(
		'datasource' => 'Database/Mysql',
		'persistent' => false,
		'host' => 'localhost',
		'login' => 'my_user',
		'password' => 'my_password',
		'database' => 'my_database',
		'prefix' => '',
		'unix_socket' => '/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/var/mysql/mysql.sock'
		//'encoding' => 'utf8',
	);

	public $test = array(
		'datasource' => 'Database/Mysql',
		'persistent' => false,
		'host' => 'localhost',
		'login' => 'user',
		'password' => 'password',
		'database' => 'test_database_name',
		'prefix' => '',
		//'encoding' => 'utf8',
	);
}

class DATABASE_CONFIG {

public $default = array(

'datasource' => 'Database/Mysql',

'persistent' => false,

'host' => 'localhost',

'login' => 'my_user',

'password' => 'my_password',

'database' => 'my_database',

'prefix' => '',

'unix_socket' => '/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/var/mysql/mysql.sock'

//'encoding' => 'utf8',

);

public $test = array(

'datasource' => 'Database/Mysql',

'persistent' => false,

'host' => 'localhost',

'login' => 'user',

'password' => 'password',

'database' => 'test_database_name',

'prefix' => '',

//'encoding' => 'utf8',

);

}

This is link to stack overflow where I found more details about it: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19280245/cakephp-database-connection-mysql-is-missing-or-could-not-be-created

That’s it for today, remember: be happy with your code!

alex-arriaga July 23, 2013

How to set directory and files permissions for a Joomla site in a production environment

GNU/Linux, Joomla, Operating Systems, Web Development 2 Replies

When you have a project created on Joomla CMS, you will need to protect your directories and files in order to avoid a possible attack or loosing information. During my time as a web developer and as a server admin in Government I learnt about what’s is a good configuration for setting permissions, for this reason I would like to share a list of commands that you can use in your own server. This set of commands apply to a GNU/Linux or UNIX-like operating systems, obviously I don’t recommend use IIS from Microsoft (I am sorry Microsoft, but PHP + IIS is NOT a good option).

In a nutshell, you can use these commands:

find /YOUR_SERVER_PATH/YOUR_ROOT_JOOMLA_DIRECTORY -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 644
find /YOUR_SERVER_PATH/YOUR_ROOT_JOOMLA_DIRECTORY -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 755
chmod -R g+w /YOUR_SERVER_PATH/YOUR_ROOT_JOOMLA_DIRECTORY/images
chmod -R g+w /YOUR_SERVER_PATH/YOUR_ROOT_JOOMLA_DIRECTORY/cache
chmod -R g+w /YOUR_SERVER_PATH/YOUR_ROOT_JOOMLA_DIRECTORY/tmp

find /YOUR_SERVER_PATH/YOUR_ROOT_JOOMLA_DIRECTORY -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 644

find /YOUR_SERVER_PATH/YOUR_ROOT_JOOMLA_DIRECTORY -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 755

chmod -R g+w /YOUR_SERVER_PATH/YOUR_ROOT_JOOMLA_DIRECTORY/images

chmod -R g+w /YOUR_SERVER_PATH/YOUR_ROOT_JOOMLA_DIRECTORY/cache

chmod -R g+w /YOUR_SERVER_PATH/YOUR_ROOT_JOOMLA_DIRECTORY/tmp

For example, if my SERVER_PATH is something like this: /var/www/ and my ROOT_JOOMLA_DIRECTORY is digital-newspaper, then we can use this commands:

# This line sets all files inside of digital-newspaper to "644" permissions
find /var/www/digital-newspaper -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 644

# Setting all directories to "755"
find /var/www/digital-newspaper -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 755

# Special group permissions are necessary in images, cache and tmp directories
chmod -R g+w /var/www/digital-newspaper/images
chmod -R g+w /var/www/digital-newspaper/cache
chmod -R g+w /var/www/digital-newspaper/tmp

# This line sets all files inside of digital-newspaper to "644" permissions

find /var/www/digital-newspaper -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 644

# Setting all directories to "755"

find /var/www/digital-newspaper -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 755

# Special group permissions are necessary in images, cache and tmp directories

chmod -R g+w /var/www/digital-newspaper/images

chmod -R g+w /var/www/digital-newspaper/cache

chmod -R g+w /var/www/digital-newspaper/tmp

So, that’s it!

Be happy with your servers!

—

Alex Arriaga

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Alex Arriaga

Category Archives:
PHP

Could not open input file: composer.phar error in Symfony 2. SOLVED.

CakePHP is losing search parameters when using pagination SOLVED

The problem

The solution

SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate SOLVED

The issue

The solution

Solving Drupal error: PDOException: SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 2006 MySQL server has gone away

The problem

Solution

Learning Drupal from scratch – Part 1 (in Spanish)

Introduction to Joomla! CMS – Session 1 (in spanish)

Why should I use a CMS?

How can I start?

Video 1

Warning: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system’s timezone settings in CakePHP SOLVED

Problem

Solution

“Error in exception handler” in first installation of Laravel framework – SOLVED

Problem

Trying to find the “real” problem to give a solution

CakePHP Database connection “Mysql” is missing, or could not be created in CakePHP Console SOLVED

Problem

Solution (in Mac OSX + XAMPP)

How to set directory and files permissions for a Joomla site in a production environment

Join me, have fun and learn!

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What would you like to know about?

Category Archives:PHP

The problem

The solution

The issue

The solution

The problem

Solution

Why should I use a CMS?

How can I start?

Video 1

Problem

Solution

Problem

Trying to find the “real” problem to give a solution

Problem

Solution (in Mac OSX + XAMPP)

Join me, have fun and learn!

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