First of all, you have to create a library that will extend CodeIgniter’s library. Create a new file named MY_Form_validation.php and put it in the application/libraries/ directory. Here is what that library will look like:

<?php  if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');
 
class MY_Form_validation extends CI_Form_validation {
 
	protected $CI;
 
	function __construct()
	{
		parent::__construct();
 
		$this->CI =& get_instance();
	}
}

The first validation method I used for a project where the user would enter a fraction and I didn’t really want to convert a decimal to a fraction. So I just created a validation method.

/**
 * Fraction
 *
 * @access  public
 * @param   string  $str
 * @return  bool
 */
public function fraction($str)
{
	$this->CI->form_validation->set_message('fraction', 'The %s field must be a valid fraction.');
 
	return ( ! preg_match("/^(\d++(?! */))? *-? *(?:(\d+) */ *(\d+))?.*$/", $str)) ? FALSE : TRUE;
}

Usage example:

$this->form_validation->set_rules('screen_size', 'Screen Size', 'fraction');

This was a fun validation to make. When a user signs up or is changing their password, their password must be PCI compliant. For a password to be PCI compliant, it must meet the following:
1) Must be between 6 and 99 characters in length
2) Must not contain two consecutively repeating characters
3) Must contain at least one upper-case letter
4) Must contain at least one lower-case letter
5) Must contain at least one number
6) Must contain at least one special character

Please note that the validation message is really long. You may want to simplify it a little before using it

/**
 * PCI compliance password
 *
 * @access  public
 * @param   $str
 * @return  bool
 */
public function pci_password($str)
{
	$special = '!@#$%*-_=+.';
 
	$this->CI->form_validation->set_message('pci_password', 'For PCI compliance, %s must be between 6 and 99 characters in length, must not contain two consecutively repeating characters, contain at least one upper-case letter, at least one lower-case letter, at least one number, and at least one special character ('.$special.')');
 
	return (preg_match('/^(?=^.{6,99}$)(?=.*[0-9])(?=.*[A-Z])(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*['.$special.'])(?!.*?(.)\1{1,})^.*$/', $str)) ? TRUE : FALSE;
}

Usage example:

$this->form_validation->set_rules('password', 'Password', 'pci_password');

CodeIgniter already has a validation method for required. But I needed one to be required if a different field had a value. A couple weeks later I needed to have method to make a field required if another field had a certain value.

/**
 * Required if another field has a value (related fields) or if a field has a certain value
 *
 * @access  public
 * @param   string  $str
 * @param   string  $field
 * @return  bool
 */
public function required_if($str, $field)
{
	list($fld, $val) = explode(',', $field, 2);
 
	$this->CI->form_validation->set_message('required_if', 'The %s field is required.');
 
	// $fld is filled out
	if (isset($_POST[$fld]))
	{
		// Must have specific value
		if ($val)
		{
			// Not the specific value we are looking for
			if ($_POST[$fld] == $val AND ! $str)
			{
				return FALSE;
			}
		}
 
		return TRUE;
	}
 
	return FALSE;
}

Usage example:

$this->form_validation->set_rules('bar', 'Bar', 'required_if[foo]'); // required if field 'foo' has a value
$this->form_validation->set_rules('foobar', 'Foo Bar', 'required_if[foo,bar]'); // required if field 'foo' has a value of 'bar'

There are a lot of examples of this validation floating around. It requires that a value being passed has a unique value in the database. This one also takes into account the database prefix.

/**
 * Unique
 *
 * @access	public
 * @param	string
 * @param	field
 * @return	bool
 */
public function unique($str, $field)
{
	list($table, $column) = explode(',', $field, 2);
 
	$this->CI->form_validation->set_message('unique', 'The %s that you requested is already in use.');
 
	$query = $this->CI->db->query("SELECT COUNT(*) AS dupe FROM {$this->CI->db->dbprefix($table)} WHERE {$column} = '{$str}'");
	$row = $query->row();
 
	return ($row->dupe > 0) ? FALSE : TRUE;
}

Usage example:

$this->form_validation->set_rules('email', 'Email', 'unique[DBTABLE,DBFIELD]');	// DBTABLE is the database table and DBFIELD is the database field to validation against

I took the previous validation a step further so that the field value must be unique in the database EXCEPT for a certain record ID. This one is really good for if you have an existing user in the system and they are updating their profile. You want to make sure that their email address is unique. If you run the previous unique validation it will fail because the email address is already in use by the user currently being edited. So we need to exclude that users ID from the validation. This one also takes into account the database prefix.

/**
 * Unique except. Check if a specific value is in use except when the value is attached to a specific row ID
 *
 * @param	string
 * @param	field
 * @return	bool
 */
public function unique_exclude($str, $field)
{
	list($table, $column, $fld, $id) = explode(',', $field, 4);
 
	$this->CI->form_validation->set_message('unique_exclude', 'The %s that you requested is already in use.');
 
	$query = $this->CI->db->query("SELECT COUNT(*) AS dupe FROM {$this->CI->db->dbprefix($table)} WHERE {$column} = '$str' AND {$fld} <> {$id}");
	$row = $query->row();
 
	return ($row->dupe > 0) ? FALSE : TRUE;
}

Usage example:

$this->form_validation->set_rules('email', 'Email', 'unique[DBTABLE,DBFIELD,IDFIELD,ID]');	// DBTABLE is the database table, DBFIELD is the database field, IDFIELD is the primary key for the table, and ID is the unique ID for the user

XML is probably the most common place to add a static block. You find whatever block you want to add your static block into and you add something like:

<block type="cms/block" name="YOUR_BLOCK_ID" before="-">
	<action method="setBlockId"><block_id>YOUR_BLOCK_ID</block_id></action>
</block>

Adding a static clock through layout XML can be very useful if you need to add a static block to a sidebar on a single page for example instead of all pages.

<reference name="left">
	<block type="cms/block" name="YOUR_BLOCK_ID">
		<action method="setBlockId"><block_id>YOUR_BLOCK_ID</block_id></action>
	</block>
</reference>

Adding you static block through PHP may be the least common way. This, however, can be very useful if you want to define areas in your theme where a menu or a widgets could go. To add a static block in PHP you would use:

echo $this->getLayout()->createBlock('cms/block')->setBlockId('YOUR_BLOCK_ID')->toHtml();

Adding a static block through a short code is very powerful. It allows you to add a static block into a CMS page or even your products.

{{block type="cms/block" block_id="YOUR_BLOCK_ID"}}

Last time we talked about general Zend Server setup. This time, we will be going through setting up virtual hosts on your local machine. This again will involve Terminal.

This assumes you have Zend Server set up and running. If it is not, go here.

1. Open Terminal. Terminal can be found at /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app

   You can also open it from Spotlight by typing “Terminal”

2. We are going to edit our httpd.conf file. In Terminal type:
   
sudo vi /usr/local/zend/apache2/conf/httpd.conf


   Enter your password if prompted

3. Use the up, down, left, right arrow keys to scroll down to where you see:
   
# Virtual hosts
#Include conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf


4. In Terminal press “i”. This will take you into edit mode to edit the file.

5. Remove the “#” before “Include”. It should look like this now:
   
# Virtual hosts
Include conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf


6. Press the escape key to exit out of edit mode. Press “:x” to save your changes.

7. Now we are going to edit our httpd-vhosts.conf file. In Terminal type:
   
sudo vi /usr/local/zend/apache2/conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf


   Enter your password when prompted

8. In Terminal press “i” to go into edit mode.

9. Use the up, down, left, right arrow keys to scroll down to where you see:
   
NameVirtualHost *:10088


   In the previous tutorial we change the port to 80. So now we have to change this line to read:
   
NameVirtualHost *:80


10. Let’s say you want to have a local virtual host for http://www.super-awesome.local that needs to be pointed at the /Users/YOUR_USERNAME/Sites/super-awesome directory. We need to add the following to the httpd-vhosts.conf file:
    
<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "/Users/YOUR_USERNAME/Sites/super-awesome"
    ServerName www.super-awesome.local
    ServerAlias super-awesome.local
</VirtualHost>


    * Note: .local is just what I picked. You can change that to .dev or .blah or whatever you like. Try to stay away from common domain extensions like .com or .net. And, yes, you can end it with more than one extension like .foo.bar

11. Press the escape key to exit out of edit mode. Press “:x” to save your changes.

12. It’s probably a good idea to make sure we didn’t mess up syntax or spelling. In Terminal type:
    
sudo apachectl configtest
sudo apachectl graceful


    Enter your password if prompted

    If there are any errors they will be displayed to you. Repeat steps 10 and 11 as many times as needed.

13. Let’s go ahead and restart Zend Server so it can get the changes. In Terminal type:
    
sudo /usr/local/zend/bin/zendctl.sh restart


    Enter your password if prompted

14. Browse to either http://www.super-awesome.local or http://super-awesome.local and your site should display

At work we have a project to be built with Codeigniter sitting on a Linux machine but we wanted to use Microsoft SQL Server on a different machine as the database. Turns out, it’s not a simple as changing the database type in Codeigniter to “mssql” to get it up and running. If this is all you do, you get the dreaded white screen. You need a PHP extension to do it. Problem is, Microsoft only makes this PHP extension for Windows. There are a lot of tutorials out there on how to build the extension yourself on Mac or Linux machine (this site for example), but none seemed to work for me.

Instead of setting up a Windows virtual machine and being forced into developing that way, I decided to install Zend Server CE. Zend comes with a MSSQL extension, it just needs to be enabled.

This tutorial does include Terminal work. I am going to walk through step-by-step, so even if you are not comfortable with Terminal, you will be up and running with Zend Server CE in no time. The only requirement is you are running an Intel Mac OS X.

1. Download Zend Server CE. CE (Community Edition) is free.

2. Install Zend Server CE like you would any other application. You can optionally drop/drop Zend Controller.app into your applications directory if you want.

Once installed, in your applications directory, open ZendServer.app. This will open a browser window. Go through the three steps. Congratulations! You have Zend Server CE set up and running. But we aren’t done yet.

By default, the root folder of your Zend Server is at /usr/local/zend/htdocs. Since /usr is a hidden directory, it’s not easily accessible.

But first…

3. Open Terminal. Terminal can be found at /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app

   You can also open it from Spotlight by typing “Terminal”

4. OS X comes with Apache already installed. We don’t want to use that version. We want to use the Zend Server version.

   In Terminal type:
   
sudo /usr/local/zend/bin/zendctl.sh stop

   To stop Zend Server. Then type:
   
sudo apachectl stop


   Enter your password if prompted

5. We need to move apachectl to a safe place, such as your home directory. In Terminal type:
   
cd /usr/sbin/
sudo mv apachectl /Users/YOUR_USERNAME/


6. Then create a symbolic link to Zend Server’s apachectl. In Terminal type:
   
sudo ln -s /usr/local/zend/apache2/bin/apachectl ./


7. Start Zend Server’s Apache. In Terminal type:
   
sudo apachectl start


   You should then see:
   
   
/usr/sbin/apachectl start [OK]


8. If you go to http://localhost/ in your browser, you will either get a forbidden or a 404 message. We’ll change that next.

9. Zend Studio’s Apache comes preconfigured to use port 10088. Let’s change this to port 80 like the default Apache port uses.

   Now we are getting into vi editing. I think this scares a lot of people. But don’t worry. It’s very simple.

   We are going to edit our httpd.conf file. In Terminal type:
   
sudo vi /usr/local/zend/apache2/conf/httpd.conf


   Enter your password when prompted

10. You are in vi edit mode so you won’t be able to type in Terminal like you normally would. Typing only gives you the the OS X bump sound. That’s normal. You can use the up, down, left, right arrow keys.

    Look for the line that says “Listen 10088″

    In Terminal, type “i” to go into edit mode to start editing the file. At the bottom of the Terminal window it will say “– INSERT –” to notify you that you are editing the file.

11. With your blinker over the “L” on “Listen”, type “#” to comment out that line

    Use the down arrow to go to the next line.

    Type:
    
Listen 80


12. Since we are already editing this file, we will go ahead and change our root directory since, as I mentioned earlier, the /usr directory is a hidden directory.

    Use the down arrow to scroll down to where it says
    
DocumentRoot "/usr/local/zend/apache2/htdocs"


    With your blinker over the “D” on “DocumentRoot”, type “#” to comment out that line

    Use the down arrow to go to the next line.

    Type:
    
DocumentRoot "/Users/YOUR_USERNAME/Sites"


    This is the default web root for OS X sites. This is a pretty good place to put out root as well.

13. Use the down arrow again to scroll down to where it says
    
<Directory "/usr/local/zend/apache2/htdocs">


    With your blinker over the “<”, type “#” to comment out that line

    Use the down arrow to go to the next line.

    Type:
    
<Directory "/Users/YOUR_USERNAME/Sites">


14. We are done editing this file. Now we need to save it. In Terminal, hit the escape key to edit out of editing mode. The “– INSERT –” at the bottom will go away.

    In Terminal again, type “:x”. This exits vi mode and saves what you changed

15. Restart apachectl type typing:
    
sudo apachectl restart


    Enter your password when prompted

16. If you go to http://localhost/ in your browser, you will see the default Mac OS X homepage now.

17. To configure Zend Framework, type:
    
sudo ln -s /usr/local/zend/share/ZendFramework/bin/zf.sh ./zf


18. To Configure Pear, type
    
sudo ln -s /usr/local/zend/bin/pear ./
sudo pear upgrade pear


19. Now we have to configure MySQL. In terminal type:
    
sudo ln -s /usr/local/zend/mysql/bin/mysql ./
sudo ln -s /usr/local/zend/mysql/bin/mysqladmin ./


20. We have to edit some settings in my.cnf for MySQL, so we go back to vi. In Terminal, type:
    
sudo vi /usr/local/zend/mysql/data/my.cnf


    To edit the file, it is similar to what you did in step 10.

    Use the down arrow to scroll down to where it says:
    
socket = /usr/local/zend/mysql/tmp/mysql.sock


    With your blinker over the “s” on “socket”, type “#” to comment out that line

    Use the down arrow to go to the next line.

    Type:
    
socket = /tmp/mysql.sock


21. By default, the password that comes with Zend Server is blank. You can change this by removing the “#” next to “password” and then changing “you_password” to whatever you want. Make sure you remember what the password is though.

22. To save the file, it is similar to what you did in step 14.

23. Configure phpMyAdmin. Since we changed the web root for Apache, we will have to create a Directory entry and Alias for phpMyAdmin, since it exists somewhere else. To edit the httpd.conf file again, in Terminal type:
    
sudo vi /usr/local/zend/apache2/conf/httpd.conf


    Enter your password when prompted

24. To start editing the file, use similar steps from step 10.

    Somewhere in the file (I put it at the very end), type:
    
Alias /phpMyAdmin /usr/local/zend/share/phpmyadmin
<Directory "/usr/local/zend/share/phpmyadmin">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>


    * Hint: Yes, you can copy/paste this if you don’t want to type it all out yourself.

    To save the file, use similar steps from step 14.

25. Go ahead and restart Zend Server. In Terminal, type:
    sudo /usr/local/zend/bin/zendctl.sh restart

Where do I put the file for my website(s)?

Files will be places in /Users/YOUR_USERNAME/Sites

Yes, of course you can create directories within that folder.

What is the URL for my site?

The root of your site is now at http://localhost/ If you have a directory within the /Users/YOUR_USERNAME/Sites directory, the URL would become http://localhost/FOLDER_NAME

To configure Zend Server, you can get to it by going to http://localhost:10081/ZendServer/ or simply by opening ZendServer.app

phpMyAdmin is located at http://localhost/phpMyAdmin The default username is “zend” and the password is left blank. You can also use “root” as the username. Again, with no password.

How do I start/stop/restart Zend Server?

To start Zend Server, in Terminal type:

sudo /usr/local/zend/bin/zendctl.sh start


To stop Zend Server, in Terminal type:

sudo /usr/local/zend/bin/zendctl.sh stop


To restart Zend Server, in Terminal type:

sudo /usr/local/zend/bin/zendctl.sh restart


Uninstalling Zend Server

1. Open Terminal

2. Enter
   
sudo /usr/local/zend/bin/uninstall.sh


   This will:

   1. Stop all Zend Server processes
   2. Delete all Zend Server installed files
   3. Remove the ZendServer.app from /Applications
   4. Remove Zend users

3. It will ask for your password. Enter your password

4. It will ask you if you are sure you want to remove Zend Server. Type “yes” (without the double quotes)

5. It tells you it will a couple directories, including your MySQL databases. Type “cont” (without the double quotes) to continue

6. In your applications directory, drag Zend Controller.app to the trash (if it is installed)

The emails that needed to be sent out needed to bcc about 20 or more different people. On my local machine I built out all of the code. I was using the sendmail protocol. Everything worked perfectly, even though I only used the “bcc” function instead of the “to” function.

Once I uploaded the files to the server, I found out I couldn’t use the sendmail protocol. I had to use the mail protocol instead. That’s when I started getting errors. When using the sendmail protocol, it’s perfectly happy being sent an array of “bcc” emails without a “to” email address. However, the mail protocol needed a “to” email address in order to work. So I ended up using the “from” email as the “to” email also and then passing the array of “bcc” emails like i was before.

Hopefully this helps someone else.

Once I am happy with everything, I will go back in and make it work with AJAX for form validation as well as submitting.

After that, I will turn it into PyroCMS, ExpressionEngine, and MojoMotor modules when I am happy with it all.

I am also gearing up towards working on an open source CMS based on Codeigniter named Combustion CMS.

Thankfully, there is a pretty simple fix. To begin with, make sure MAMP is shut down. Next, open Terminal. To open Terminal either open Spotlight (Cmd+Space) and type “terminal” or you can find Terminal in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder.

Once you get Terminal opened, type the following:

ps aux | grep mysql 
lsof -i 
killall -9 mysqld

That’s it. Start up MAMP and MySQL will come back up just like normal. Another option would be to simply change the port number MySQL is using in MAMP. Restarting your computer may work too but I did’t try that.

The most common use of .htaccess files is removing file extensions, such as index.php, from a website URL. They are much ore powerful than that though. I’m not going to go into the details about what .htaccess files can do, shouldn’t be used for, best practices, or anything else like that. I’m going to show you how to get .htaccess files set up and working with MAMP.

The only requirements are that you have a Mac (that’s the first ‘M’ in MAMP) and the MAMP software already installed. I am using the latest version. MAMP will install everything else you need (Apache, MySQL, and PHP which is ‘AMP’ in MAMP) to get up and running so you can start making your own sites locally.

First and foremost, the location of your website files in MAMP need to go in /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/ That may sound like common sense but that’s what took the longest for me to figure out. I had my files in /Applications/MAMP/bin/mamp/ which is where all of the files for the start page is located. I just made a folder inside there and was going to the site at http://localhost:8888/MAMP/myfolder No matter what I did, the .htaccess file would not work at all from within that directory. So make sure your websites files are in /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/ or a folder within.

The next thing you need to know is ‘htaccess’ isn’t the file extension and there isn’t a file name on the file. The dot at the front typically means it is a hidden file on Unix based operating systems (which the Mac is). So you will need to show the hidden files on your machine. There are a few ways to do this. One of the easiest ways is to use a Dashboard widget. Hidden Files Widget is a great widget for this. If the hidden files are hidden, the button will say ‘Show’. If the hidden files are visible, the button will say ‘Hide’. It can’t get any more simple that that. Install the widget then click the ‘Show’ button. Sometimes the desktop icons won’t come back automatically. If they don’t come back after a minute, click on the Finder icon in the dock and they should come back. Now, go to wherever your website files are located. If there is a .htaccess file in the folder, skip the next paragraph. If it is not there, read the next paragraph.

Here is the catch. It’s tough to create a .htaccess file because the Mac thinks ‘htaccess’ is the file extension but you didn’t give the file a name. So it won’t just let you do it. WordPress creates a .htaccess file for you when you set up a blog locally. I believe Drupal does the same thing but I’m not 100% positive on that. Other applications possibly do as well. If you aren’t installing a CMS like that, you can always create a custom one and download it. Below is a very basic example of a .htaccess file that I typically use. Once you have a .htaccess file, put it in the root of where your website will live.

The .htaccess file can be opened with TextEdit. You can open it with Dreamweaver or almost anything you want. Here is an example of a typical .htaccess file

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# BEGIN My_Website
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
	RewriteEngine On
	#RewriteBase /
	RewriteBase /mywebsite/
	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
	RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
	#RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L]
</IfModule>
# END My_Website

The hash marks (#) are comments. I’ll talk a little about the second and third commenta in a second.

If you are developing a site locally, your files may not be in the root of the /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/ folder since you may be working on more than one website. That is what the RewriteBase is for. It specifies where the root of your website is in accordance with the root of the domain or local root. In this example, my website and it’s files are in a folder called mywebsite which is inside my /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/ folder. Since /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/ is my root folder, I don’t have to put that in the path. I just have to put the path from the root folder. If you notice, on the line above that (line 4), I have commented out that line with a hash. When you upload the files to your website, uncomment this line (line 4) and comment out the line after it (line 5). That way the .htaccess file works when you get it on the actual site. If you are not uploading the files to the root of your website, set the path accordingly.

The third comment (line 9) is a variation of the line above it (line 8). Both work pretty much the same. You don’t have to have the first and last comment lines. You can delete them and it won’t effect anything.

That is literally all I had to do to get the site working. I saw sites that wanted me to edit httpd.conf files and php.ini files and all kinds of files under the sun. I didn’t have to though. If you do need to mess with those files, there are a couple pretty good walkthroughs to help you out here and here.