Query7 » Web Development

MongoDB PHP Tutorial

admin — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 09:36:13 +0000

“MongoDB is a scalable, high-performance, open source, schema-free, document-oriented database. Written in C++” – www.mongodb.org (mongodb.org)

There has been alot of publiclity on NOSQL databases over the last few months. CouchDB, Cassandra and Redis are known to be highly scalable and blazingly fast, yet setup and adoption for hobby developers has been relatively low because there is no need for such high scalability and they are relatively difficulty to get setup.

MongoDB strikes a balance between the familiarity and ease of use of MySQL, and the freeness and performance offered by document storage databases. The database has no set schema so you can add, remove and modify the structure of your documents without having to issue an UPDATE statement.

Installation & Setup

Installing MongoDB is very easy. The only setup required is to create the directory that Mongo stores the data in. In Windows the default location is C:\data\db\ and on *nix it is /data/db/. Once the directory is created, download the appropriate Mongo binary from the downloads page (http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Downloads) and run the bin/mongod file. Mongo should now be up and running.

Now we need to install the PHP extension for MongoDB. If your on Linux or Mac OS you can use the pecl tool which is packaged with PHP. In the command line type sudo pecl install mongo and it will automatically pull the source, compile it and add the extension entry to php.ini. If your on Windows you will need to download the appropriate binary (http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Installing+the+PHP+Driver#InstallingthePHPDriver-WindowsInstall) , copy php_mongo.dll to your extension directory and then add the line
extension=php_mongo.dll to the php.ini file. Restart your web server and everything should be up and running.

MongoDB Wrapper


class mongo
{

	public $connection;
	public $collection;

	public function __construct($host = 'localhost:27017')
	{
		$this->connection = new \Mongo($host);
	}

	public function setDatabase($c)
	{
		$this->db = $this->connection->selectDB($c);
	}

	public function setCollection($c)
	{
		$this->collection = $this->db->selectCollection($c);
	}

	public function insert($f)
	{
		$this->collection->insert($f);
	}

	public function get($f)
	{
		$cursor = $this->collection->find($f);

		$k = array();
		$i = 0;

		while( $cursor->hasNext())
		{
		    $k[$i] = $cursor->getNext();
			$i++;
		}

		return $k;
	}

	public function update($f1, $f2)
	{
		$this->collection->update($f1, $f2);
	}

	public function getAll()
	{
		$cursor = $this->collection->find();
		foreach ($cursor as $id => $value)
		{
			echo "$id: ";
			var_dump( $value );
		}
	}

	public function delete($f, $one = FALSE)
	{
		$c = $this->collection->remove($f, $one);
		return $c;
	}

	public function ensureIndex($args)
	{
		return $this->collection->ensureIndex($args);
	}

}

Using our MongoDB wrapper

With MongoDB installed and running the class written we can now start interacting with some data. We start by instantiating our class, then creating a new database and collection. Both databases and collections are made on the fly. A collection is MongoDB’s equivilant of a table in SQL databases, it just holds data.

$m = new mongo();
$m->setDatabase('query7');
$m->setCollection('data');

Now lets insert some data into the collection. Notice that the value of tutorials is an array. MongoDB supports these data structures natively and values in them can be searched and queried.

$m->insert(array(
'url' => 'http://www.query7.com',
'software' => 'wordpress',
'tutorials' => array('php','javascript','web development'),
));

We can do a simple search and select all documents where url = http://www.query7.com. To find all documents with web development in the tutorials array we would need to set tutorials as an index. As you could imagine this is also straight foward.

$m->get(array('url' => 'http://www.query7.com'));

$m->ensureIndex(array('tutorials' => 1);
$m->get(array('tutorials' = 'php'));

Updates are easy to issue as well. The first parameter is the conditions the data to be updated must meet (similar to WHERE in SQL), the second is the changes we want to make to that data. Notice that the second parameter has the key $set . By using $set we keep the rest of the data in our document (url, tutorials) intact. If we didn’t use $set then the entire document would just contain the key software and the value wordpress2.

$m->update(array('url' => 'http://www.query7.com'), array('$set' => array('software' => 'wordpress2')), true);

Finally we are going to want to delete data. Our delete method takes one argument, the conditions the data must meet.

$m->delete(array('software' => 'wordpress2'));

I hope this has shown you how easy MongoDB is to use. I highly recommend you try MongoDB in your next project.

Working with Google’s Language API

admin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 11:28:42 +0000

Google translate is used by millions of people every day. Combine this with the easy reporting of language errors/mistakes makes it one of the most comprehensive and accurate online translators. Google provides an easy to use API to access their large language database, we’ll be using that today.

It will consist of two textareas, two dropdowns and one button. It will look something like this:

HTML

The HTML code is fairly straight foward. Notice the dropdown menus have values. These are essential as this is the language code, it’s sent to Google.



Translate
From:


To:

We’ll start by including Google’s Language API and jQuery. We can’t link directly to a language.js file, instead we need to use Google’s own load function. jQuery will also be included this way.


google.load("language", "1");
google.load("jquery", "1.3.2");

We need to use jQuery to get 3 values. The textarea containing the words they want translated, the language it is currently in and the language they want it translated into. We only want to capture these when the user clicks the translate button so we wrap it in the click event.

    $(document).ready(function(){

		    $("#translate").click(function(){

		        var from = $("#from").val();
			var to = $("#to").val();

			var orig = $("#or").val();

			    });

	});

Now we need to use Google’s translate function. It takes several parameters – the text we want translated (orig), the language the text was in (from) and the language we want it translated to (to). We capture the information google sends back to is in result. If there are no errors then we set the textarea to the translated text.

google.language.translate(orig, from, to, function(result) {

	if(!result.error)
	{

		$("#tr").val(result.translation);

	}

	});

If you have any questions or comments feel free to post them below.

Increase Development Speed With jQuery

admin — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 06:23:40 +0000

As we all know jQuery is a very small language. Not only is the file size of the jQuery library small, but the amount of code you need to write to achieve something is also very small. Because of this it is sometimes more efficient to write and test jQuery code in the browser than in a local file. To do this we need a couple of things.

The Firebug Extension for Firefox
Greasemonkey

If the page that we are going to manipulate doesn’t already include jQuery on it, then we can include it with this small Greasemonkey script. If jQuery is already included on the page, there is no use for this script.

// Add jQuery
    var GM_JQ = document.createElement('script');
    GM_JQ.src = 'http://jquery.com/src/jquery-latest.js';
    GM_JQ.type = 'text/javascript';
    document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(GM_JQ);

// Check if jQuery's loaded
    function GM_wait() {
        if(typeof unsafeWindow.jQuery == 'undefined') { window.setTimeout(GM_wait,100); }
    else { $ = unsafeWindow.jQuery; letsJQuery(); }
    }
    GM_wait();

// All your GM code must be inside this function
    function letsJQuery() {
        alert($); // check if the dollar (jquery) function works

    }

Source
With the jQuery library on the page we can now go ahead and start entering commands. For this example we’ll take jQuery.com, we can enter a basic jQuery Selector and see what happens.

before.png (http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/1918/beforeus0.png) Download, rehost, embed this image here.

after.png (http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/5812/aftercd6.png) Download, rehost, embed this image here.

As you can see it’s very easy to manipulate pages. You can use this to manipulate scripts that your working on. For example, if you were trying to nail down a certain selector, or find a 4th parent of something, its going to be alot easier and faster to do it in the Firebug terminal than editing, saving and refreshing the page while your trying to perfect it. With jQuery’s CSS capabilities, you can also test your CSS out live, without needing to switch back and forth between your editor and firefox.

Layout and UI Designer

admin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:28:01 +0000

A stumbled across an amazing online app, meant to be like a CAD im guessing but then i realised the different things it could be used for. Project Draw gives you a grid to start off with, you can then place various shapes onto the grid and resize them. Further more you can add colours, text, gradients, alignments and borders which makes it a really good tool to design layouts.

jQuery UI

admin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:26:22 +0000

For those of you with no jQuery background what-so-ever, jQuery UI is a series of user interface (UI) enhancements made in Javascript. These range from tabs (which also support ajax loading), to dialog boxes which you can drag, drop and resize. All cross browser! Although its currently still under development the finish line is in sight for the 1.5 release. I encourage everyone to check it out, it can add some really professional effects to your website for minimal lines of code.

Setting Up an Adobe Air Development Enviroment (Video Tutorial)

admin — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:59:33 +0000

Adobe Air has been out for around a year, i’ve only just started playing with it. I recorded a video tutorial showing you how to setup a development (using Aptana) and make a very simple application. This method will work for all Operating Systems.

Feed Fixed

admin — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 04:25:34 +0000

The RSS feed has been fixed and the theme is just about done! Its a very simple theme (as CSS/graphics have never been my strong point) but it will look good. More jQuery, PHP and Linux content coming soon!

Whats Happening?

admin — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:49:08 +0000

Im in the process of making/designing a custom wordpress theme for the site. Alot of things went wrong in the upgrade from 2.5 to 2.5.1 so once the new theme is finished, im doing a fresh install of wordpress so it (hopefully) irons out the RSS and posting bugs. Im backing up the database (and ill restore it) so all of the posts will still be where they were.

More posts are coming, ive been working on a couple of video tutorials lately so i can post them with the launch of the new site/theme.

Just letting everyone know.

~Panzer

Invision Power Board 3.0 Announced

admin — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:58:27 +0000

Invision Power Services have announced the development of Invision Power Board 3.0. They promise a new

Features Include

Template engine
Search engine friendly URLS (I presume /forumname/topicname rather than ?fid=493&tid=98 )
New BB Code system
More Administrator controls (Picky options i’d image – turning signatures off in specific forums etc..)
Reputation System (Finally catching up with vBulletin )
Enhanced permission and moderator systems.

They say they are adding more integration tools, so you can integrate it with your existing website, or adleast provide some easier integration tools; it will also have tighter integration with other IPS products such as the blog, gallery.

Its interesting to see that they are dropping support for Oracle. They boast about having so many big business clients, i’d presume they all run Oracle, and yet are dropping support for it. Mayby they are turning back into a community board rather than a business board?

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on that.

Rick Rolling

admin — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 01:00:12 +0000

Every been linked to one of those pages? You know, the ones you can’t escape.. Javascript boxes start popping out of nowhere and then you hear him.. Rick Astley.. telling you how he’s feeling about you.. You’ve been Rick Rolled.

Rick Rolling has taken off as late and links are popping up all over forums, websites and IRC. What links? You say. These links. . On top of tricking your friends.. or blog viewers .. to click this link there have been some “live rick rollings”.

Ever been rickrolled yourself? Or got a really good one on somebody? Share it here.