Category: php

Well, you might have seen a huge number of variable checks ranging from is_file(), is_array() to is_numeric() and is_int(). While developing a script today I wanted to check for alphabets. I directly used is_alpha() but to my surprise it wasn’t defined.

I researched more into the matter and found ctype_alpha() does precisely the same thing. However, I still believe there should be a standard function having prefix ‘is_’ for alphabets too.

Cheers

Here’s a function which thoroughly checks email-address and returns true for a valid email address and returns false for invalid one. I thought it was worth sharing so I posted it on my blog. You will find the source link at the bottom.

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/**
Validate an email address.
Provide email address (raw input)
Returns true if the email address has the email 
address format and the domain exists.
*/
function validEmail($email)
{
   $isValid = true;
   $atIndex = strrpos($email, "@");
   if (is_bool($atIndex) && !$atIndex)
   {
      $isValid = false;
   }
   else
   {
      $domain = substr($email, $atIndex+1);
      $local = substr($email, 0, $atIndex);
      $localLen = strlen($local);
      $domainLen = strlen($domain);
      if ($localLen < 1 || $localLen > 64)
      {
         // local part length exceeded
         $isValid = false;
      }
      else if ($domainLen < 1 || $domainLen > 255)
      {
         // domain part length exceeded
         $isValid = false;
      }
      else if ($local[0] == '.' || $local[$localLen-1] == '.')
      {
         // local part starts or ends with '.'
         $isValid = false;
      }
      else if (preg_match('/\\.\\./', $local))
      {
         // local part has two consecutive dots
         $isValid = false;
      }
      else if (!preg_match('/^[A-Za-z0-9\\-\\.]+$/', $domain))
      {
         // character not valid in domain part
         $isValid = false;
      }
      else if (preg_match('/\\.\\./', $domain))
      {
         // domain part has two consecutive dots
         $isValid = false;
      }
      else if
(!preg_match('/^(\\\\.|[A-Za-z0-9!#%&`_=\\/$\'*+?^{}|~.-])+$/',
                 str_replace("\\\\","",$local)))
      {
         // character not valid in local part unless 
         // local part is quoted
         if (!preg_match('/^"(\\\\"|[^"])+"$/',
             str_replace("\\\\","",$local)))
         {
            $isValid = false;
         }
      }
      if ($isValid && !(checkdnsrr($domain,"MX") || checkdnsrr($domain,"A")))
      {
         // domain not found in DNS
         $isValid = false;
      }
   }
   return $isValid;
}

Usage Example:

if(validEmail($_POST['email']))
echo 'Valid Email';
else
echo 'Invalid Email';

Source/Reference

Cheers!

Flushing the output buffer doesn’t works in PHP sometimes no matter what you do. I had this code which would never work on my server but would perfectly fine on localhost. This was the code.

<?php
include('common.php');
ini_set('output_buffering','on');
ini_set('zlib.output_compression', 0);
//ini_set('implicit_flush',1);
ob_implicit_flush();
for($i=0;$i<10;$i++) {
      echo $i;
      echo str_repeat(" ", 500);
      ob_flush();
      flush();
      sleep(1);
}
?>

I knew this had to do with Server configuration as the php code was fine. Then after searching a lot I stumbled across a page where it said that my host had recently enabled gzip for all pages, I instantly knew this was the problem.

So I made a .htaccess file in the folder where this script was and entered the following:

SetEnv no-gzip dont-vary

Saved the file. And it started buffering.

Cheers!

I’ve developed my own libraries for rapid development of PHP applications. Email library is one area which I didn’t feel like developing a library for. Just then, I remembered how simple and robust CodeIgniter’s Email class was. I decided to try it on my own script. It was not at all difficult to get it working. It just commented out few lines of codes and voila! I was able to send my first email.

Those who are in need of a email library could use this simple library separately. I’ll guide you through the whole process step by step.

First thing you need to do is copy the Email.php from system/libraries folder and place it inside your script. Then use your favorite IDE to edit these lines:

Comment out the first line which stops the direct access to the script.

<?php    if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');

Should look like:

<?php    //if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');

Then goto line 1920, ie. to the _set_error_message function.
Change

function _set_error_message($msg, $val = '')
	{
		$CI =& get_instance();
		$CI->lang->load('email');

		if (FALSE === ($line = $CI->lang->line($msg)))
		{
			$this->_debug_msg[] = str_replace('%s', $val, $msg)."
";
		}
		else
		{
			$this->_debug_msg[] = str_replace('%s', $val, $line)."
";
		}
	}

to:

function _set_error_message($msg, $val = '')
	{/*
		$CI =& get_instance();
		$CI->lang->load('email');

		if (FALSE === ($line = $CI->lang->line($msg)))
		{
			$this->_debug_msg[] = str_replace('%s', $val, $msg)."
";
		}
		else
		{
			$this->_debug_msg[] = str_replace('%s', $val, $line)."
";
		}*/
	}

Now to send a mail:

<?
include('Email.php');
$config = Array(
            'protocol' => 'smtp',
            'smtp_host' => 'ssl://smtp.googlemail.com',
            'smtp_port' => 465,
            'smtp_user' => '[email protected]',
            'smtp_pass' => 'abc123',
            'mailtype'  => 'html',
            'charset'   => 'iso-8859-1'
        );
        $email = new CI_Email($config);
        $email->set_newline("\r\n");
        $email->from('[email protected]', 'My Script');
        $email->to('[email protected]');
        $email->subject('Just a test');
        $msg = "Testing CI email class";
        $email->message($msg);
        $email->send();
?>

Run the script and your mail should be sent. I also posted the exact code which should be used when sending a mail using gmail’s smtp.

Cheers!