Category Archives: php

30 Jan
2012

PHP 5.4 Built In Webserver

One of the big features arriving with PHP 5.4 is the addition of a built-in basic webserver for use in development environments. Quite a few of the other scripting languages have something like this so I'm very pleased to see it in PHP. Using a server like this makes it easy to quickly try out some scripts without needing to configure apache or really do anything much! I had to look up a few things to get started, so I thought I'd write them down for posterity. Continue reading →

19 Jan
2012

Building A RESTful PHP Server: Understanding the Request

Once upon a time, what seems like a lifetime ago, I was away for a couple of weeks, and I wrote a series of posts about serving RESTful APIs from PHP to keep my blog going while I was away. Fast forward a few years and those posts are outdated and still wildly popular - so I thought it was about time I revisited this and showed how I'm writing RESTful PHP servers today!

In the first part of this (probably) 3-part series, we'll begin with the basics. It might seem boring, but the most important thing to get right with REST is parsing all the various elements of the HTTP request and responding accordingly. I've put in code samples from from a small-scale toy project I created to make me think about the steps involved (should I put the code somewhere so you can see it? Let me know). Without further ado, let's dive in and begin by sending all requests through one bootstrap script: Continue reading →

24 Oct
2011

My Book is Published: PHP Master

PHP Master Cover ShotI am truly delighted to announce that "my" book is published. Technically it's really "our" book since I had the pleasure of co-authoring with friends and PHP rockstars Davey Shafik and Matt Turland. The book is "PHP Master" and it's a broad-ranging text covering a series of topics that we felt were relevant to PHP developers who aren't beginners, but who are looking to fill in some gaps and get a good grounding in creating whole applications in PHP.
Continue reading →

17 Oct
2011

Announcing Training Dates for November

I'm teaching some new public courses next month (in Leeds), so I thought I'd mention them on the blog in case anyone is interested. I'm super-excited because this is the first time I've delivered my own training content as a public course, so even if you aren't in the position where you work with lots of people who need the same training, you can pop along! Continue reading →