dbPHP - Object Relationional Mapping for PHP

2009-05-16

dbPHP is a lightweight framework allowing object relational mapping between (at present) mySQL and PHP.
dbphp project home
dbphp twitter
Google Code Home
SourceForge Code Home
dbphp manual

Object relational mapping is the process of creating a structural relationship between the classes/data objects used in the logic layer and the database itself.
One of the most successfully implemented exampled of an object relational/persistence frame work in the world of open source software is Seam with Hibernate. Seam is a framework for Java that allows one to run a generation script against a database and return an entire class frame work mirroring the structure of the database.
It allows for information to be directly loaded from the database into memory, view/altered/removed, and these changes saved without the user ever having to interact directly with the database through structured query language.
dbPHP is not designed to be commercial - if you want a hardcore resilient server with tons of functionality then you would never even consider PHP. what dbPHP aims to do is speed up the development times of quick and dirty PHP.
PHP allows users to develop code in incredibly shoddy ways with no regard for performance or re-usability and dbPHP tries to steer the developer towards a more structured object-oriented style of development.
Existing Frameworks
Zend Framework
WACT
Prado
ZooP Framework
eZ Components
CodeIgniter
CakePHP*
Symfony Project*
Seagull Framework*
PHP on TRAX*
My research has lead me to believe that only 4 of the existing main frameworks have object relational mapping capability *.
Object Relational Mapping
The importance of object relational mapping in scalable designs is clear. Maintaining a cross-platform relationship between data structures underpins many concepts which form the future of the internet - using an ORM Java example, a table can be taken from a database, loaded into memory and then directly output in XML - allowing for easy transfer of information retaining all of the semantic meaning using an open and widely available transport standard.
Lightweight.
The lightweight element of dbPHP is the key to its strength. PHP is free, it runs on cheap nasty hosting and it can provide a reasonable degree of functionality in relation the the manipulation and display of data for the web. dbPHP requires no installation other than being present in a directory. It is a series of classes that can be extended allowing child classes to map their internal structure to database objects and inheriting a number of useful SQL commands such as update, delete, findAll.
PHP Limitations
PHP has severe memory and performance limitations when it comes to handling large amounts of data or highly recursive tasks (default time out is set to 30 secs). It also has no ability to run threads and the only time it ever bothers to execute anything is if someone or something requests a page be served up. Global variables are seriously dodgy as you never really know what has access to them meaning that whenever you are requesting something from memory you have no way of knowing who set it, what's in it or if it will change.
PHP will quite happily work in a similar way to a well laid out java class model with private variables and get/set functions if one spends the time to do this.
Creative context.
When you want to make a project on the web, unless you love code, you don't really want to be spending half your time reinventing the wheel and rewriting code for boring banal stuff like update databases or other such stuff. Taking this to the extreme you can make all your projects in word press and totally abstract yourself from the process - if however your project involves some low-level elements, you're doing something clever with data, you want to incorporate a piece of flash that requires the storage of persisted data or you want to create a custom photo gallery of your own design - you probably want to focus on your own project and program logic. What dbphp does is allow you to treat your database and table as another area of memory and store and retrieve without extra hassle.
framework comparison chart
http://www.phpit.net/demo/framework%20comparison/chart.php

RSS Feed

2009-05-12

icurtain rss feed

Information Evil? - Extending the Panopticon

2009-03-27

Information Evil

Foucault argues that the bureaucratic systems that regulate society extend the Panopticon of subtle social control deep into the inner most reaches of our psyche. (Foucault, 1975)
The basis for this need to control and organise society finds its roots in the concepts of ownership and possession, the ability to accrue and control wealth and assets above and beyond that of others, and to then retain that control.
The ideologies upon which modern Capitalism are based were first manifested in the Protestant work ethic. Himanen (2001) . This enshrined work and social compliance as the cornerstones of a godly life. At its heart lay the all seeing, omnipresent eyes of God inspecting his flock as they deified themselves through good honest labour, working daily for their place in heaven. Work became an end in itself, no longer based on productivity but rather hours spent in toil. It enslaved the working classes into a life of holy drudgery with the promise of eternal salvation if they complied.
The church acted as an intermediary with the great omnipotent power of God and thus held sway over the lives of many whilst underpinning governments and bureaucratic institutions.
As rational thought and the development of technology have gradually slain the myth of an omnipresent God, governments and those with an interest in social control have sought to fill the void with less celestial threats.
Whilst bureaucracies have never had religious ideology at their core they do rely on principles of behavioural modification with the threat of social, legal and religious consequences.
New technologies enable bureaucratic systems to micromanage themselves and grow on an unprecedented scale whilst also allowing them to extend the limits of surveillance in support of their goals of social conformity, cost cutting and efficiency.
In order to accept the control of faceless bureaucracies utilising surveillance as a tool for the furtherance of freedom and justice it is necessary to view the state as a benevolent god-like body that can be trusted with the interests of all and which has an inherent sense of right and wrong with which all of the population agree. It is also necessary to think of the ‘criminal element’ of society as separate social strata which must be controlled and exemplified as a failure to conform.
This dissertation aims to investigate how technology has aided the growth of bureaucratic systems in developing their internal structures whilst extending the effectiveness of the surveillance systems that underpin their powerbase, in contrast with the initial ethics and ideals that contributed to the development of the information technology revolution using London as a microcosm of a contemporary capitalism ruled by bureaucracy, extending its power through surveillance.
Progressive development of computer systems has lead to an almost invaluable status within society, underpinning most of the daily routine of modern society. Vehicle engine management, financial systems, and the formulation of corporate and governmental policy are all examples based on computer models and analysis of data.
Has all of this allowed modern technology in the form of organised information storage and computerised electronic surveillance replaced religion as a method of social control?

Information Evil - Full Text

MySQL full indexed text search - just like a real database!!

2009-03-24

As of My Sql 3.something you can now add text indexes to your columns and do full text searches with relevance ranking! text indexes are fantastic and allow more efficient searching and categorisation of text. The relevance ranking feature is rather good too and gives you a much better idea of how your search performed.
Issues to note are, this example uses relevance ranking as the criteria for returning results, if you take that condition out you will return every result in the database with a relevance score of 0.
The default MySQL settings do not bother to index search terms of less than 4 characters therefore searching for anything less will bring back no results. This can be altered by setting "set ft_min_word_len =1" in your mysql config. This will result in a performance hit.
Text indexes in large data sets can be quite processor intensive so you might also consider limiting your result set.
ALTER TABLE `database`.`table_name`
ENGINE = MyISAM;
ALTER TABLE table_name
MODIFY column_name TEXT;
ALTER TABLE table_name
ADD FULLTEXT(column_name);
SELECT *,
MATCH(column_name)
AGAINST ('search term')
AS score
FROM table_name
HAVING score > 0
ORDER BY score DESC;

PHP Colour Changing Background Algorithm

2009-03-24

This returns the average colour of an image in PHP using GD libraries and then, assuming you ahve no sense of design, you could use this to set the background colour of a page. This code can be slotted directly into the ImageHandler class also on this site

public function getAverageColour(){
$colours = array('red'=>0,'green'=>0,'blue'=>0);
$count = 0;
$rgbstring = null;
for ($i=0;$iimage);$i++){
for ($j=0;$jimage);$j++){
$rgb = imagecolorat($this->image, $i, $j);
$ici = imagecolorsforindex($this->image, $rgb);
//print_r($ici);
foreach($colours as $key => $value){
$colours[$key] = $colours[$key] + $ici[$key];
}
$count++;
}
}
foreach($colours as $key => $value){
$colours[$key] = dechex(intval($colours[$key] / $count));
$rgbstring = $rgbstring . sprintf("%02s", $colours[$key]);
}
return $rgbstring;
}

Bluetooth connection manager in Mobile Java J2ME

2009-03-17

This Bluetooth Java connection manager class and its data package class have quite a few issues - main one being that the thread for checking the incoming data stream should be reading each byte of data and queuing it rather than trying to receive discrete packages of data and queueing them - will be fixed and updated at some stage.

/*
* copyright - mike lang - icurtain.co.uk
* blutooth connection manager - 0.1
* has some rather dodgy flaws - multi-threading is currently incorrectly implemented
*
*/
package utilities;
// Bluetooth Libraries
import javax.bluetooth.*;
import javax.microedition.io.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.util.Vector;
/**
*
* @author mike lang
*/
public class ConnectionManager implements Runnable {
//bluetooth vars
public LocalDevice local;
public StreamConnectionNotifier notifier;
public DiscoveryAgent agent;
private boolean active = false;
private boolean server = false;
private int packetSize = 15;
boolean tx = false;
//new stuff
private String btSerial = "86b4d249fb8844d6a756ec265dd1f6a3";
//output stream to write to
private StreamConnection streamConnection;
private ServiceRecord serviceRecord;
private OutputStream outputStream;
//input stream fromw hich to read
private InputStream inputStream;
private Vector sendQueue;
private Vector receiveQueue;
private boolean threadQuit;
private String dataStart = "<";
private String dataStop = ">";
private String dataBreak = "@";
private String incompleteData;
private int threadSleep = 100;
public void run(){
while(!threadQuit){
if(this.isActive()){
this.communicate();
}
// System.out.println("COMMS THREADLOOP");
try {
//Sleep for 100 milliseconds, or 1/10 of a //
Thread.sleep(threadSleep);
//second. The sleep method chucks up an //
} //exception. //
catch (Exception ee) {
System.out.println(ee);
}
}
}
public synchronized void addSendQueue(BTPackage btp){
//we are typing the list info as Strings
if(sendQueue==null){
sendQueue = new Vector();
}
//now its in the queue calc the checksum
btp.calcCheckSum();
sendQueue.addElement(new BTPackage(btp));
}
private BTPackage consumeSendQueue(){
//we can either type to string or just store objects
if(sendQueue != null && !sendQueue.isEmpty()){
BTPackage btp = (BTPackage)sendQueue.lastElement();
sendQueue.removeElement(sendQueue.lastElement());
return btp;
}
return null;
}
private void addRecieveQueue(BTPackage btp){
if(receiveQueue==null){
receiveQueue = new Vector();
}
receiveQueue.addElement(new BTPackage(btp));
}
public synchronized boolean checkReceiveQueue(){
if(receiveQueue != null && !receiveQueue.isEmpty()){
return true;
}return false;
}
public synchronized BTPackage getReceiveQueue(){
//we can either type to string or just store objects
if(this.checkReceiveQueue()){
BTPackage btp = (BTPackage)receiveQueue.lastElement();
receiveQueue.removeElement(receiveQueue.lastElement());
return btp;
}return null;
}
//code here
public void setBtSerial(String btSerial){
this.btSerial = btSerial;
}
public String getBtSerial(){
return this.btSerial;
}
private void setActive(boolean active){
this.active = active;
}
public boolean isActive(){
return this.active;
}
public boolean isServer() {
return server;
}
private void setServer(boolean server) {
this.server = server;
}
public void startServer(){
// server code
if(!this.isActive()){
try {
local = LocalDevice.getLocalDevice();
if (!local.setDiscoverable(DiscoveryAgent.GIAC)) {
System.out.println("Failed to change to the discoverable mode");
return;
}
notifier = (StreamConnectionNotifier) Connector.open("btspp://localhost:" + this.getBtSerial());
// System.out.println("btspp://localhost:" + this.getBtSerial());
streamConnection = (StreamConnection) notifier.acceptAndOpen();
inputStream = streamConnection.openInputStream();
//may have to remove this line below;
outputStream =streamConnection.openOutputStream();
//ByteArrayOutputStream out = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
this.setActive(true);
this.setServer(true);
ByteArrayOutputStream out = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
} catch (BluetoothStateException e){
System.out.println("BluetoothStateException:" + e.getMessage());
} catch (IOException e){
System.out.println("IOException:" + e.getMessage());
}
}
}
public void startClient(){
try {
agent = LocalDevice.getLocalDevice().getDiscoveryAgent();
String connectionString = agent.selectService(
new UUID(btSerial, false),
ServiceRecord.NOAUTHENTICATE_NOENCRYPT, false);
if (connectionString != null) {
// System.out.println("trying to send bluetooth client data");
try {
streamConnection = (StreamConnection) Connector.open(connectionString);
outputStream = streamConnection.openOutputStream();
inputStream = streamConnection.openInputStream();
System.out.println("initiating a connection");
this.setActive(true);
this.setServer(false);
} catch (IOException e) {
System.out.println("IOException:" + e.getMessage());
}
} else {
System.out.println("Unable To Locate Service");
}
} catch (BluetoothStateException e){
System.out.println("BluetoothStateException:" + e.getMessage());
}
}
private void communicate(){
// synchronized( this ){
System.out.println("network thread");
if(this.isServer()) {
this.sendData();
this.receiveData();
}else{
this.receiveData();
this.sendData();
}
// }
}
private void sendData(){
//OutputStream outputStream = streamConnection.openOutputStream();
String data = "";
//we should be consuming the send queue here
if((this.sendQueue != null)&&(!this.sendQueue.isEmpty())){
data = this.encodeBTPackage(this.consumeSendQueue());
System.out.println("SENDING:" + data);
if (this.streamConnection != null) {
// System.out.println("trying to send bluetooth client data");
try {
//data = dataStart+data+dataStop;
outputStream.write(data.getBytes());
} catch (IOException e) {
System.out.println("IOException:" + e.getMessage());
}
}
//set to receive
}
}
private void receiveData(){
byte[] dataBuffer;
String tempData = "";
boolean endOfPackage = false;
int input;
try {
while ((input = inputStream.read()) >= 0){
//System.out.println("XX "+(char) input);
tempData += (char) input;
//THIS SECTION MUST RELINQUISH READING OR IT WILL CARRY ON READING THE WHOLE OUTPUTSTREAM!!!!
if(String.valueOf((char)input).equals(dataStop)){
// this.addRecieveQueue(tempData);
// System.out.println("ADDED: "+ tempData);
// return;
break;
}
}
System.out.println("PROCESSED: "+ tempData);
this.addRecieveQueue(this.unencodeBTPackage(tempData));
} catch (IOException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
public void terminate(){
try{
this.streamConnection.close();
}catch(IOException e){
System.out.println(e.toString());
}
this.setActive(false);
}
public boolean isThreadQuit() {
return threadQuit;
}
public void setThreadQuit(boolean threadQuit) {
this.threadQuit = threadQuit;
}
private String encodeBTPackage(BTPackage data){
String string = "";
data.calcCheckSum();
string = this.dataStart +
data.getNameSpace() +
this.dataBreak +
data.getData() +
this.dataBreak +
String.valueOf(data.getCheckSum()) +
this.dataBreak +
String.valueOf(data.getTime()) +
this.dataStop;
return string;
}
private BTPackage unencodeBTPackage(String data){
//we are currently using 4 fields so the string has to be split into an array
Vector list = new Vector();
String temp = "";
// temp = data.substring(packetSize, packetSize)
//split string into array
int j = 0;
//this loop checks for the data break and if it finds it creates
for(int i = 1;i<(data.length()-1);i++){
if(!data.substring(i,(i+1)).equals(this.dataBreak)){
temp += data.substring(i,(i+1));
}else{
list.addElement(new String(temp));
temp = "";
j++;
//System.out.println(data.substring(i,(i+1)));
}
}
//catch the last list element here rather than doing a double compare in the if
list.addElement(new String(temp));
/*for(int i = 0; i < list.size();i++){
System.out.println((String)list.elementAt(i));
}*/
BTPackage btp = new BTPackage();
btp.setNameSpace((String)list.elementAt(0));
btp.setData((String)list.elementAt(1));
//the quickest way seems to be to convert from object cast as String to long
//btp.setTime(Long.parseLong((String) list.elementAt(2)));
//btp.setCheckSum(Long.parseLong((String)list.elementAt(3)));
return btp;
}
}
/*
* copyright - mike lang - icurtain.co.uk
* blutooth connection manager - 0.1
* data package
*/
package utilities;
/**
*
* @author mike lang
*/
public class BTPackage {
//live variable says if the data package is live or
private boolean live = true;
private String nameSpace = "";
private String data = "";
private long checkSum;
private long time;
public BTPackage(){
this.time = System.currentTimeMillis();
}
//alternate constructor
public BTPackage(BTPackage btp){
this.setNameSpace(btp.getNameSpace());
this.setData(btp.getData());
this.setTime(btp.getTime());
this.setCheckSum(btp.getCheckSum());
}
public String getData() {
return data;
}
public void setData(String data) {
this.data = data;
}
public boolean isLive() {
return live;
}
public void setLive(boolean live) {
this.live = live;
}
public String getNameSpace() {
return nameSpace;
}
public void setNameSpace(String nameSpace) {
this.nameSpace = nameSpace;
}
public void calcCheckSum(){
this.checkSum = String.valueOf(this.time+this.nameSpace).hashCode();
}
public void setCheckSum(long checkSum){
//this should only be called before the package is sent
this.checkSum = checkSum;
}
public long getCheckSum(){
//this should only be called before the package is sent
//this.checkSum = String.valueOf(this.time+this.nameSpace).hashCode();
return this.checkSum;
}
public long getTime() {
return time;
}
public void setTime(long time) {
this.time = time;
}
}

PHP Image handler.. and why PHP is limited in usefulness

2009-03-07

This little application was an attempt to map an image into an array of pixel objects using the PHP GD libraries and it's made me painfully aware of how limited PHP is in it's ability to handle large or complex data structures.

Below is a simple piece of code that attempts to copy each pixel value from an image into a pixel object and store it in a 2 dimensional array - anything over 150x150px and you run out of memory/if you don't store it then it takes forever to process

The only way to implement this kind of functionality within PHP is to write a specific extension for that purpose.. but then that's not really PHP anymore and it means you have to mess around with your server configuration in order to make it work... oh for java on cheap boxes :(

<?php
class Pixel{
private $red = null;
private $green = null;
private $blue = null;
public function setFromCI($ci){
$this->setRed($ci['red']);
$this->setGreen($ci['green']);
$this->setBlue($ci['blue']);
}
public function getRed(){
return $this->red;
}
public function setRed($red){
$this->red = $red;
}
public function getGreen(){
return $this->green;
}
public function setGreen($green){
$this->green = $green;
}
public function getBlue(){
return $this->blue;
}
public function setBlue($blue){
$this->blue = $blue;
}
}
class Picture{
private $image = null;
private $imageArray = null;
public function loadImage($url){
$this->image = imagecreatefromjpeg($url);
//print_r($this->image);
}
public function stats(){
echo 'width: '.imagesx($this->image).' height: '.imagesy($this->image);
}
public function toArray(){
$this->imageArray=null;
$x = imagesx($this->image);
$y = imagesy($this->image);
for ($i=0;$i<$x;$i++){
for ($j=0;$j<$y;$j++){
$p = new Pixel();
$rgb = imagecolorat($this->image, $i, $j);
$p->setFromCI(imagecolorsforindex($this->image, $rgb));
//echo 'i'.$i.'j'.$j.'-';
$this->imageArray[$i][$j] = $p;
}
}
}
public function fromArray(){
$x = count($this->imageArray);
$y = count($this->imageArray,COUNT_RECURSIVE)/$x-1;
echo ' x '.$x.' y '.$y;
//$img = ImageCreateTrueColor($width, $height)
}
public function getPixelAt($i, $j){
if($this->imageArray[$i][$j]!=null){
return $this->imageArray[$i][$j];
}
}
}
?>
<?php
$pic = new Picture();
$pic->loadImage('home.jpg');
$pic->toArray();
echo $pic->stats();
$x = $pic->getPixelAt(114,114);
print('<br />');
echo $x->getGreen();
print('<br />');
echo $x->getBlue();
print('<br />');
echo $x->getRed();
print('<br />');
$pic->fromArray();
?>

find java path in ubuntu

2008-12-08

finding the java path in ubuntu is easy, just follow the links... most links live in /usr/bin so:

mike@mbox:/$ ls -l /usr/bin/java
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 2008-12-07 22:16 /usr/bin/java -> /etc/alternatives/java

mike@mbox:/$ ls -l /etc/alternatives/java
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 40 2008-12-07 22:34 /etc/alternatives/java -> /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/bin/java

sql

2008-12-08

sql
SERVEROUTPUT ON
declare
result_limit number := 10;
current_query_no number := 1;
--table_n varchar2(30) := 'brian.cran1400_der_results';
--cursor all_results is select * from brian.cran1400_der_results;
cursor result_list(counter number) is select * from brian.cran1400_der_results where queryno = counter order by score DESC, docno ASC;
--cursor sub_list is select * from brian.cran1400_der_results where
--select all results from table where query number is less than 10
inner_min number := 1;
inner_max number := 10;
total_precision number := 0;
begin
for result_record IN result_list(current_query_no) loop
--loops through the result list in the cursor (all records 1 - 10)
for counter_one in inner_min..inner_max loop
-- do stuff here
current_query_no := counter_one;
if result_record.rn = 'R' then total_precision := total_precision + 1;
dbms_output.put_line (total_precision);
end if;
end loop;
end loop;
end;

mounting external discs

2008-11-10

sudo fdisk -l
sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/target /media/target