Categorized

The creation of a monster …

Use the following index.php to merge WCF/WBB with Zend Framework. Now why would you want that?!?!
Well, personally I wanted to create Zend Framework REST services of Woltlab Burning Board features and also make use of various ZF components in combination with WBB data.

I also ran into some issues:
- Somehow the SetEnv in my .htaccess was not accepted (had to hard code the environment setting into my index.php)
- Zend_Filter_PregReplace seemed to fail on the unicode support check on line 75, hard coded it to false unfortunately

Enjoy this madness:

<?php

// xdebug_start_trace( 'C:\Zend\Zend Server\ZendServer\logs\xdebugtrace',1 );

// ------------------------------------ WOLTLAB INIT --------------------------------------------

$path = realpath(dirname(APPLICATION_PATH).'/../board/');
if (!defined('WBB_DIR')) define('WBB_DIR', $path.'/');
if (!defined('RELATIVE_WBB_DIR')) define('RELATIVE_WBB_DIR', WBB_DIR);

$wcfpath = realpath(dirname(APPLICATION_PATH).'/../wcf/');
if (!defined('WCF_DIR')) define('WCF_DIR', $wcfpath.'/');
if (!defined('RELATIVE_WCF_DIR')) define('RELATIVE_WCF_DIR', $wcfpath.'/');

// include WBB
require_once(WBB_DIR.'/config.inc.php');

// include WCF
require_once(RELATIVE_WCF_DIR.'/global.php');

$packageDirs = array();
if (!count($packageDirs)) $packageDirs[] = WBB_DIR;
$packageDirs[] = WCF_DIR;

// starting wbb core
require_once(WBB_DIR.'lib/system/WBBCore.class.php');
new WBBCore();

// Woltlab WCF autoloading is required on top of the ZF autoloading
function wcf_autoload($className) {
	// search util class in wcf dir
	if (file_exists(WCF_DIR . 'lib/util/' . $className . '.class.php')) {
		// include file
		require_once(WCF_DIR . 'lib/util/' . $className . '.class.php');
		return;
	}
	// search exception class in wcf dir
	if (file_exists(WCF_DIR . 'lib/system/exception/' . $className . '.class.php')) {
		// include file
		require_once(WCF_DIR . 'lib/system/exception/' . $className . '.class.php');
		return;
	}

	// search util or exception class in application dirs
	global $packageDirs;
	if (isset($packageDirs) && is_array($packageDirs)) {
		foreach ($packageDirs as $packageDir) {
			if (file_exists($packageDir . 'lib/util/' . $className . '.class.php')) {
				// include file
				require_once($packageDir . 'lib/util/' . $className . '.class.php');
				return;
			}
			if (file_exists($packageDir . 'lib/system/exception/' . $className . '.class.php')) {
				// include file
				require_once($packageDir . 'lib/system/exception/' . $className . '.class.php');
				return;
			}
		}
	}
}
spl_autoload_register('wcf_autoload'); 

// ------------------------------------ ZEND FRAMEWORK INIT --------------------------------------------

ini_set('mbstring.internal_encoding','UTF-8');
ini_set('mbstring.http_input','UTF-8');
ini_set('mbstring.http_output','UTF-8');

// Define path to application directory
defined('APPLICATION_PATH') || define('APPLICATION_PATH', realpath(dirname(__FILE__) . '/application'));

// Define application environment
// WARNING!! SetEnv did not seems to work, maybe not allowed to perform it ...
defined('APPLICATION_ENV') || define('APPLICATION_ENV', (getenv('APPLICATION_ENV') ? getenv('APPLICATION_ENV') : 'development'));

if ('development' === APPLICATION_ENV) {
	error_reporting(E_ALL);
	ini_set("display_errors", 1);
}

// Ensure library/ is on include_path
// Library relative to the current path!
set_include_path(implode(PATH_SEPARATOR, array(
    realpath(APPLICATION_PATH . '/library'), get_include_path(),
)));

/** Zend_Application */
require_once 'Zend/Application.php';  

// Create application, bootstrap, and run
$application = new Zend_Application(
    APPLICATION_ENV,
    APPLICATION_PATH . '/configs/application.ini'
);

$application->bootstrap()
            ->run();

// xdebug_stop_trace();

Just a little example of custom validation rules. It highlights some of the features like parameter passing, custom messages and common pitfalls (and as a bonus exact date parsing with datejs). I don’t do this daily so it’s also a code snippet for myself ;-)

Common mistake:
- Use the name attribute on your input elements, the validator depends on it.
- Initiate the validator before adding rules :)
- check if the element has been tagged optional, hence the rule does not need to be enforced if it is.
- pass element dependencies as parameters instead of hard coding them, i.e. makes the rule reusable.
( – check if the date parsing was a success )

$(function(){
	$.validator.addMethod("after", function(value, element, elementid) {
			var start = Date.parseExact ( $(elementid).val(), 'd-M-yyyy' );
			var end = Date.parseExact ( $(element).val(), 'd-M-yyyy' );

			/*
			 * There seems to be a bug in the next check,
			 * it never returns true if a value has been given although the required rule has been set to false.
			 * Using jQuery validation plug-in 1.7
			 * Test snippet:
			 var strange = $.validator.methods.required.call(this, $.trim(element.value), element);
			 console.debug(strange);
			 console.debug(this.optional(element));
			 */
			if (this.optional(element)) { return true; }

			// Parsing failed.
			if (!start || !end) { return false; }

		 	var after = start <= end;
			return after;
		}, 'Incorrect date specified'
	);	

	$('#foo').validate();	

	$('#end').rules("add", {
		// required: false,
		after: '#start',
		messages: {'after':'End date must be after the start date.'}
	});		

	$('#validate').click(function(){
		$('#foo').valid();
	});
});

Validation Demo

References:
Date Parsing
http://www.datejs.com/
http://code.google.com/p/datejs/wiki/APIDocumentation
http://code.google.com/p/datejs/wiki/FormatSpecifiers

Validation
http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/jquery-plugin-validation/
http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/Validation

Considering that Oracle is pricing for the use of InnoBD in the OEM release of MySQL, will it be still freely available and updated in future releases of its community edition. I’m personally developing a lot against Oracle’s DB, can’t say I’m a big fan of the product or the company. Should I make a switch to lets say, PostgreSQL?!?!

I’ve also been to the Dutch Java conference to see what’s happening there, they’ve somewhat seen the light and are trying to correct past mistakes. Java FX basically failed and is getting a remake, feels a bit like flogging a dead horse but ok, the platform needs proper GUI technology. They are putting a lot of emphasis on proper web integration, HURRAY, finally!!! Lets hope they can revive the language because in my opinion is was kind of decaying rapidly and everyone lost interest because Microsoft.NET was really the next-gen Java and which did have the guts to improve on previous versions. However the Silverlight & WPF is also failing a bit I guess considering Microsoft has altered its strategy to HTML5 for development of rich internet applications:

Microsoft: Our strategy with Silverlight has shifted
Silverlight, HTML5, and Microsoft’s opaque development strategy