I've just added a couple of new PHP related instruction sets to
e-gineer:

    Installing IMAP 4.x for PHP 3.0.x with Apache 1.3.x on Red Hat 5.x

    Installing IMP 2.0.x for PHP 3.0.x with Apache 1.3.x on Red Hat 5.x

They are available with my other instruction sets at:

    <http://www.e-gineer.com/e-gineer/instructions/index.phtml>

Cheers,

Nathan


------------------------------------------------------------
How can I generate a unique value in PHP?
http://e-gineer.com/e-gineer/phpkb/view.phtml/qid/580
------------------------------------------------------------
John Coggeshall

uniqid() will work just fine.  It generates a unique key based on
microtime.

    http://www.php.net/manual/function.uniqid.php3


------------------------------------------------------------
How do I connect to an ODBC database?
Where can I get an example of an ODBC session?
http://e-gineer.com/e-gineer/phpkb/view.phtml/qid/581
------------------------------------------------------------
Riley Breiddal

Code for an ODBC connection:

$myDB = odbc_connect("Movies","","");
$query = "SELECT * FROM MovieList";
$result = odbc_exec($myDB, $query);
$report = odbc_fetch_row($result);
echo odbc_result($result, 1);
odbc_close($myDB);

This code would goto whichever database you have declared as "Movies" in
your System DSN list with no login or password.  Then using $query (if
you don't know SQL, write your query using that Access Design View, then
switch to SQL View, and it'll show you the 'code' for it).  The rest is
straightforward, just prints out the first field of the first row in the
database.

About the DSN's, if you operate your server, (I'm assuming your on NT :)
just goto ODBC Data Sources in Control Panel and add your database to
System DSN.  

    Driver = Access. 
    Data Source Name = (in this example) "Movies".


------------------------------------------------------------
How I can limit use of PHP to only one directory of a website?
http://e-gineer.com/e-gineer/phpkb/view.phtml/qid/583
------------------------------------------------------------
Teodor Cimpoesu

well my guess is:
on server wide config

<IfModule mod_php3.c>
php3_engine off
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_php4.c>
php_admin_flag engine off
</IfModule>

In your directory(or ries) 

<Directory foo>

<IfModule mod_php3.c>
php3_engine on
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_php4.c>
php_admin_flag engine on
</IfModule>

</Directory>


------------------------------------------------------------
Where can I find a PHP web host?
http://e-gineer.com/e-gineer/phpkb/view.phtml/qid/584
------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Jeftovic

Try checking the list at:

    http://phphosts.easydns.com/


------------------------------------------------------------
How can I get the output of a perl script in my PHP script?
How can I get the results returned from a call to exec()?
http://e-gineer.com/e-gineer/phpkb/view.phtml/qid/585
------------------------------------------------------------
Teodor Cimpoesu

Just read the docs carefully.

    exec("/bin/something",$out,$how);

    http://www.php.net/manual/function.exec.php3

execs something, outputing in $out array (one line per entry), and
eventually giving the exit status in $how.  If you want the perl script
executed via CGI, see virtual().


------------------------------------------------------------
Do I need to escape characters inside a [] set in a regular expression?
http://e-gineer.com/e-gineer/phpkb/view.phtml/qid/587
------------------------------------------------------------
Adam Trachtenberg

You don't need to escape "." and "-" inside of [], since it's
clear they represent literal "." and "-", not regex metacharacters.


------------------------------------------------------------
Where can I use a hyphen (-) inside a [] set in a regular expression?
http://e-gineer.com/e-gineer/phpkb/view.phtml/qid/588
------------------------------------------------------------
Adam Trachtenberg

Inside of [] in a regex, if you want a literal "-" it must be at the
beginning or end of the characters; otherwise, it specifies a range of
characters, as in a-z.


------------------------------------------------------------
How can I exit or break out of a while loop?
http://e-gineer.com/e-gineer/phpkb/view.phtml/qid/589
------------------------------------------------------------
Kim Shrier

What about "break"?

ie

while (condition) {

    break;
 
}


** OTHER RANDOMLY SELECTED PHPKB ENTRIES **


------------------------------------------------------------
What is the OR operator in PHP?
http://e-gineer.com/e-gineer/phpkb/view.phtml/qid/411
------------------------------------------------------------

You can use either || or the keyword 'or'.  For more information see:

    http://www.php.net/manual/language.operators.logical.php3

Be careful though, these different operators have different precedence
levels:

    http://www.php.net/manual/language.operators.precedence.php3


------------------------------------------------------------
How do I reference a variable that is defined inside a class?
http://e-gineer.com/e-gineer/phpkb/view.phtml/qid/31
------------------------------------------------------------

You need to do $object->var.  For example:

class Foo {
    var $i;

    function Foo() {
        $this->i = new Bar;
    }
}

$f = new Foo;

echo $f->i;



------------------------------------------------------------
Can I create an image by pasting together other images?
http://e-gineer.com/e-gineer/phpkb/view.phtml/qid/290
------------------------------------------------------------

How about something like this, it works and may give you some ideas.

It basically takes three images and 'pastes' them together with some
text to produce a single button, it also does some calculation to work
out the correct size etc.

<?php

if (!isset($text)){
    $text="this is a test";
}

$fontsize=11;
$angle=0;
$fontfile="c:/winnt/fonts/tahomabd.ttf";

$leftbit=imagecreatefromgif("support_image/emptyleft.gif");
$rightbit=imagecreatefromgif("support_image/emptyright.gif");
$middlebit=imagecreatefromgif("support_image/emptymiddle.gif");

$size=imagettfbbox(
        $fontsize,
        $angle,
        $fontfile,
        ' ' . stripslashes($text) . ' ');
$twidth=((int)$size[4]-(int)$size[0]);
$htwidth=$twidth/2;
if (($twidth)<69){
    $twidth=69;
}
$bwidth=$twidth+11;
$height=((int)$size[3]-(int)$size[1]);
$target=imagecreate($bwidth,30);

imagecopyresized($target,$leftbit  ,0,0,0,0,6,30,6 ,30);
imagecopyresized($target,$middlebit,6,0,0,0,$bwidth,30,69,30);
imagecopyresized($target,$rightbit ,(int)$twidth+6,0,0,0,5,30,5 ,30);

$white = ImageColorAllocate($target,255,255,255);
$black = ImageColorAllocate($target,0,0,0);

imagettftext(
    $target,
    $fontsize,
    $angle,
    ((int)$bwidth/2)-((int)$htwidth)+2,
    (int)$height/2+17,
    $white,
    $fontfile,
    stripslashes($text));

Header( "Content-type: image/gif");
imagegif($target);
#print $bwidth . "<br>" . "$twidth";

?>


------------------------------------------------------------
How can I work out the days in a month?
When was the 't' option for date() introduced?
http://e-gineer.com/e-gineer/phpkb/view.phtml/qid/531
------------------------------------------------------------

From the manual:

    http://www.php.net/manual/function.date.php3

the option to use is:

    t - number of days in the given month; i.e. "28" to "31"

so your code looks like:

    $days_this_month = date('t');
    // specify a timestamp if you want a different month

The 't' option was introduced in version 3.0.10


------------------------------------------------------------
How can I display a number with exactly 2 decimal places?
How can I format a number for printing?
http://e-gineer.com/e-gineer/phpkb/view.phtml/qid/39
------------------------------------------------------------

Two decimal places (with thousands separator) is:

number_format($num, 2);

With no thousands separator try:

number_format($num, 2, '.', '');

http://www.php.net/manual/function.number-format.php3