While developing cross-subdomain authentication we suddenly realised that it didn’t work on Opera. After a bit of research it turns out that it’s not the setting of the cookie path (“.local.bnt”) that is the problem, but the way Opera checks which part of the domain name is the top level domain:

“Here at Opera we went for the rule-of-thumb method: When Opera is checking a cookie whose target domain matches certain criteriea (e.g. it is not a .com domain), we do a DNS name lookup for the target domain, to see if there is an IP address for that domain. If there is an IP address for the domain (e.g. example.no) we assume that the domain is a normal company domain, not a co.uk like domain, and therefore safe. If there is no IP address we assume that the domain is co.uk-like and therefore unsafe, and only allows the cookie to be set for the server that sent the cookie.”

So that’s the problem right there and with an easy fix once you know the above… However the whole article is worth a read as it does shed some light on the multiple problems related to top level domains and cookies.

If you want to keep your random local domain name make sure your hosts file contains not only your sub domains, but the main one as well even if it is not used directly.

127.0.0.1    www.local.bnt
127.0.0.1    local.bnt

With several people working on the same page while we were recreating some JS functionality from scratch I’ve noticed one of my buttons suddenly stopped working. Scratched my head a bit, and for a minute thought that maybe it’s not having a “return false;” in my jQuery live() event handler.

Turned out though that it was actually one of the other developers actually putting a “return false;” in their event handler that just happened to target the same element…

Ideally we needed to propagate the event through a variable number of events but prevent the default behaviour of a link kicking in. preventDefault() to the rescue!

$('#tag').live('click', function(event){
    (...)
    event.preventDefault();
});

Now, before blindly applying this piece of code I’d encourage everyone to first read up on why “return false;” is evil.

And for a quick reference here’s a table featured on a related StackOverflow question:

All you need is your own Db adapter and Queue class.

For the adapter you only need to overwrite the send() function. The highlighted code below is the only change to the original class (2 lines affected…). You could actually apply this without extending Zend_Queue, but this way will be easier if you ever need to update your Zend library.

<?php

class TS_Queue_Adapter_Db extends Zend_Queue_Adapter_Db {

    /**
     * Send a message to the queue
     *
     * @param  string     $message Message to send to the active queue
     * @param  Zend_Queue $queue
     * @param  Timestamp $timeout
     * @return Zend_Queue_Message
     * @throws Zend_Queue_Exception - database error
     */
    public function send($message, Zend_Queue $queue = null, $timeout = null){
        if ($this->_messageRow === null) {
            $this->_messageRow = $this->_messageTable->createRow();
        }

        if ($queue === null) {
            $queue = $this->_queue;
        }

        if (is_scalar($message)) {
            $message = (string) $message;
        }
        if (is_string($message)) {
            $message = trim($message);
        }

        if (!$this->isExists($queue->getName())) {
            require_once 'Zend/Queue/Exception.php';
            throw new Zend_Queue_Exception('Queue does not exist:' . $queue->getName());
        }

        $msg = clone $this->_messageRow;
        $msg->queue_id = $this->getQueueId($queue->getName());
        $msg->created = time();
        $msg->body = $message;
        $msg->md5 = md5($message);
        $msg->timeout = $timeout;

        try {
            $msg->save();
        } catch (Exception $e) {
            require_once 'Zend/Queue/Exception.php';
            throw new Zend_Queue_Exception($e->getMessage(), $e->getCode(), $e);
        }

        $options = array(
            'queue' => $queue,
            'data' => $msg->toArray(),
        );

        $classname = $queue->getMessageClass();
        if (!class_exists($classname)) {
            require_once 'Zend/Loader.php';
            Zend_Loader::loadClass($classname);
        }
        return new $classname($options);
    }
}

Your Queue class only needs to extend the send() function again to allow you to pass the timeout through. obviously you can use this class to add other functionality too.

<?php

class TS_Queue extends Zend_Queue {

	/**
	 * Send a message to the queue
	 *
	 * @param  mixed $message message
	 * @return Zend_Queue_Message
	 * @throws Zend_Queue_Exception
	 */
	public function send($message, $timeout = null){
		return $this->getAdapter()->send($message, null, $timeout);
	}
}

Working code example

$username = "expectedUsername";
$password = "expectedPassword";

if (!isset($_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER']) || $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER'] != $username || $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_PW'] != $password) {
  header('WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm=""');
  header('HTTP/1.0 401 Unauthorized');
  echo '>h2>Authorization failed.>/h2>';
  exit;
} else if($_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER'] != $username & $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_PW'] != $password){
  echo '>h2>Authorization failed.>/h2>';
  exit;
}

Most common reason for failure

Firstly if you are using an older book or website as reference you will see $PHP_AUTH_USER mentioned instead of $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER']. If you are using the former then this could be the reason for not seeing your variables populated.

The reason that can take you by surprise

If your code is correct (compare against the example) and you are using the $_SERVER variable format and still getting NULL inside both $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER'] and $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_PW'] it’s time to check your server settings.

HTTP authentication does not work with the cgi version of PHP, so if your hosting allows you will need to switch to PHP as Apache module or look for an alternative solution.

$user['Address']->delete();
$user['Address']->state(Doctrine_Record::STATE_LOCKED);
(...)
$user->save();

It seems that unless you set the state the save later on still sees an initialized (though empty!) relation.

Setting up Selenium RC server together with PHPUnit has proven surprisingly easy… Well most of it. Every now and then as a beginner you might run into monster errors like the one above. No fear, what Selenium is trying to tell you is just that your path is wrong.

For me it happened when trying to setup the error screenshot variables:

protected $captureScreenshotOnFailure = TRUE;
protected $screenshotPath = '/var/www/localhost/htdocs/screenshots';
protected $screenshotUrl = 'http://localhost/screenshots';

In case you wonder the path relates to the browser’s host not the Selenium RC host (if they are different), In my case the browsers are run on a windows box, with the Selenium RC setup on a Linux machine. Thus the error about the inapropriate $screenshotPath.

I have found examples like the second one below, but no one mentions that you actually declare the default namespace too for everything to work.

$autoloader = new Zend_Application_Module_Autoloader(array(
	'namespace' => '',
	'basePath'  => APPLICATION_PATH .'/modules/default',
	'resourceTypes' => array (
		'form' => array(
		'path' => 'forms',
		'namespace' => 'Form',
    ),
	'model' => array(
		'path' => 'models',
		'namespace' => 'Model',
    	),
    )
));

$autoloader = new Zend_Application_Module_Autoloader(array(
	'namespace' => 'Admin_',
	'basePath'  => APPLICATION_PATH .'/modules/admin',
	'resourceTypes' => array (
		'form' => array(
		'path' => 'forms',
		'namespace' => 'Form',
    ),
	'model' => array(
		'path' => 'models',
		'namespace' => 'Model',
    	),
    )
));

Automatic relationship detection

When setting up a YAML file with your database schema you can start it with the handy declaration:

---
detect_relations: true

It does the One to Many relationship for you nicely, however the Many to Many ones did not work out of the box and required manual BaseModel tweaking. Take for example my Tag, Website, and WebsiteTag classes.

BaseTag:

abstract class BaseTag extends Doctrine_Record {

  public function setTableDefinition() {
    $this->setTableName('ts_tags');
    $this->hasColumn('name', 'string', 128, array('type' => 'string', 'length' => '128'));
    $this->hasColumn('is_category as isCategory', 'integer', 1, array('type' => 'integer', 'length' => '1'));
    $this->hasColumn('page_id', 'integer', 8, array('type' => 'integer', 'length' => 8));
    $this->hasColumn('ordering', 'integer', 5, array('type' => 'integer', 'length' => '5'));
  }

  public function setUp() {
    $this->hasOne('Page', array('local' => 'page_id',
                                              'foreign' => 'id'));

    $this->hasMany('Website as Websites', array('local' => 'tag_id',
                                                                     'foreign' => 'website_id',
                                                                     'refClass' => 'WebsiteTag'));

    $i18n0 = new Doctrine_Template_I18n(array('fields' => array(0 => 'name')));
    $this->actAs($i18n0);
  }
}

BaseWebsite:

abstract class BaseWebsite extends Doctrine_Record{
  public function setTableDefinition() {
    $this->setTableName('ts_websites');
    $this->hasColumn('page_id', 'integer', 8, array('type' => 'integer', 'length' => 8));
    $this->hasColumn('title', 'string', 128, array('type' => 'string', 'length' => '128'));
    $this->hasColumn('client', 'string', 128, array('type' => 'string', 'length' => '128'));
    $this->hasColumn('link', 'string', 255, array('type' => 'string', 'length' => '255'));
    $this->hasColumn('intro', 'string', null, array('type' => 'string'));
    $this->hasColumn('content', 'string', null, array('type' => 'string'));
    $this->hasColumn('published', 'timestamp', null, array('type' => 'timestamp'));
    $this->hasColumn('is_home as isHome', 'integer', 1, array('type' => 'integer', 'length' => '1'));
  }

  public function setUp() {
    $this->hasOne('Page', array('local' => 'page_id',
                                              'foreign' => 'id'));

    $this->hasMany('Tag as Tags', array('local' => 'website_id',
                                                          'foreign' => 'tag_id',
                                                          'refClass' => 'WebsiteTag'));

    $this->hasMany('Media', array('local' => 'website_id',
                                                 'foreign' => 'media_id',
                                                 'refClass' => 'WebsiteMedia'));

    $i18n0 = new Doctrine_Template_I18n(array('fields' => array(0 => 'intro', 1 => 'content', 2 => 'title')));
    $this->actAs($i18n0);
  }
}

BaseWebsiteTag:

abstract class BaseWebsiteTag extends Doctrine_Record {

  public function setTableDefinition() {
    $this->setTableName('ts_website_has_tags');
    $this->hasColumn('tag_id', 'integer', 8, array('type' => 'integer', 'length' => 8, 'primary' => true ));
    $this->hasColumn('website_id', 'integer', 8, array('type' => 'integer', 'length' => 8, 'primary' => true));
  }

  public function setUp() {
  }
}

The highlighted portions of code needed to be added. You can actually define these manually in the YAML file, the catch is that I was expecting it to happen magically with the auto relationship setting.

Many to Many with extra fields

Another little issue that Doctrine has is when you try to retrieve records. It in a way skips the joining table and retrieves a collection of the final items. In most cases this is exactly what you might need. However for my Media I decided to keep the ordering in the joining table – WebsiteMedia.

$q = Doctrine_Query::create()
  ->from('Website w')
  ->joinLeft('w.Media');

If you simply proceed with the above you only get Media objects without the ordering.

BaseWebsiteMedia:

abstract class BaseWebsiteMedia extends Doctrine_Record {

    public function setTableDefinition() {
        $this->setTableName('ts_website_has_media');
        $this->hasColumn('website_id', 'integer', 8, array('type' => 'integer', 'length' => 8, 'primary' => true));
        $this->hasColumn('media_id', 'integer', 8, array('type' => 'integer', 'length' => 8, 'primary' => true));
        $this->hasColumn('caption', 'string', 255, array('type' => 'string', 'length' => '255'));
        $this->hasColumn('is_main as isMain', 'integer', 1, array('type' => 'integer', 'length' => '1'));
        $this->hasColumn('ordering', 'integer', 4, array('type' => 'integer', 'length' => '4'));
    }

    public function setUp() {
        $this->hasOne('Website', array('local' => 'website_id',
                                       'foreign' => 'id'));

        $this->hasOne('Media', array('local' => 'media_id',
                                     'foreign' => 'id'));

        $i18n0 = new Doctrine_Template_I18n(array('fields' => array(0 => 'caption')));
        $this->actAs($i18n0);
    }
}

If you do not have the additional One to Many relations declared already you should add them now. With the modified model now you can get the records like so:

$q = Doctrine_Query::create()
  ->from('Website w')
  ->leftJoin('w.WebsiteMedia wm')
    ->leftJoin('wm.Media m');

This gives you a collection of WebsiteMedia records each containing the actual Media item.

Recently I needed to get the number of the week in a certain month. There is the handy WEEK() function, however it only gives you the week of the year.

Obviously before we can go through the code above, a definition of the n^th week of the month is needed (as I realized after asking the question on stackoverflow…):

For me the week starts on a Monday, and the first week of the month does not have to be a full week – if a month starts on a Friday, the Friday to Sunday days count as the first week.

With this out of the way here is a quick explanation of what goes on above.

WEEK(my_date_field,5)

First we get the actual week number of the year for the specified date. The second parameter is there to define Monday as the first day of the week (more details in Mysql manual).

DAYOFMONTH(my_date_field)

Next we get the day of the month for the specified date.

DATE_SUB(my_date_field, DAYOFMONTH(my_date_field)-1 DAY)

We can use that number with DATE_SUB to get the date for the 1^st day of the month. This in turn can be used to get the week number for the 1^st week of the month.

SELECT WEEK(my_date_field,5) -
WEEK(DATE_SUB(my_date_field, INTERVAL DAYOFMONTH(my_date_field)-1 DAY),5)+1

Finally we subtract the first day’s week from the actual week number which should give us the month’s week number starting from 0. Thus the final +1 if you want the count to start from 1.

You Think It’s Easy…

For starters rather than use “raw” Zend_Db_Select:

$select = $db->select();

I wanted to derive the select from my Zend_Db_Table_Abstract, like so:

class Model_Db_Website extends Zend_Db_Table_Abstract {
	(...)
	public function fetchWebsites(){
		$select = $this->select();
		$select->join(array('whi' => 'website_has_images), 'whi.website_id = websites.website_id')
		return $this->fetchAll($select);
	}
}

This was more or less the example I found in the documentation. You might be wondering what is wrong with this picture. At first it seems like there is nothing missing. The table fields and the table name (for the FROM clause) are taken from the table class, and we have provided all the necessary JOIN details… However instead of the expected result, you an error message!

Message: Select query cannot join with another table 

The Solution

Not to prolong any more here is the final bit, which we will walk-through below.

class Model_Db_Website extends Zend_Db_Table_Abstract {
	(...)
	public function fetchWebsites(){
		$select = $this->select();
		$select->setIntegrityCheck(false)
			->from($this->_name, '*')
			->join(
				array('whi' => 'website_has_images'),
				'whi.website_id = websites.website_id', '*'
    			);
		return $this->fetchAll($select);
	}
}

The first thing you need to do is get rid of the error. This one has been mentioned online quite a lot and is easy to fix by applying:

->setIntegrityCheck(false)

The code above makes your result set read only, but allows you to do joins.

Now for the less obvious bits. Once the above problem is fixed you will notice that your results only include the join table fields. To fix this add the final parameter to the list – either a ‘*’ or an explicit list of fields.

Many sites suggest using an empty array, though this causes the result set to return only main table fields…

The ‘*’ is not enough though. You still need the from declaration ->from($this->_name, ‘*’), as without you will still be getting just the join table fields.

So there you go, it took me quite a bit of fiddling and randomly changing the parameter set to arrive at the final solution. Hope it saves you the hassle too!