HTML Quickie: Long String Overflowing Your Div

Do you have that problem? I do.

EDIT(05/31/2009): Even better solutions:

Hyphenator.js: http://code.google.com/p/hyphenator/

OR:

General CSS solution:

overflow: scroll

/EDIT

The HTML solution:

use <wbr>. (But you have to figure out yourself where to put the tag)

The IE-specific CSS solution:

word-wrap: break-word

PHP solution:

wordwrap(‘your_very_long_string_here’, 15) // Break after 15 characters

Python solution:

import textwrap

textwrap.fill(‘your_very_long_string_here’, 15) # Break after 15 characters

References:

• http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/nobr.html
• http://us3.php.net/wordwrap
• http://docs.python.org/library/textwrap.html
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/320184/who-has-solved-the-long-word-breaks-my-div-problem-hint-not-stackoverflow

Languages Numeric Types

C & C++ References:

• http://home.att.net/~jackklein/c/inttypes.html
• http://www.space.unibe.ch/comp_doc/c_manual/C/CONCEPT/data_types.html

C Trivia:

• In C, long is both modifier and data type.
• Long Long Int is not available in C++
• <limits.h> header contains max & min information of numeric types.

C & C++ Numerical Types:

• ShortInt — 2 bytes and 16 bits
• Int — 2 bytes and 32 bits
• Long Int — 2 bytes and 32 bits
• Long Long Int (C only) — 4 bytes and 64 bits
• Double — 64 bits

CPython Reference:

• http://docs.python.org/lib/typesnumeric.html

CPython Numerical Types:

• Int ( use Long Int in C ) — 32 bits precision.
• Float (use Double in C) — 64 bits precision.
• Long — Unlimited precision.
• Complex (use Double in C)

Java References:

• http://www.cafeaulait.org/course/week2/02.html
• http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/lang/Number.html

Java Primitive Numerical Types:

• Short — 2 bytes and 16 bits
• Int — 2 bytes and 32 bits
• Long — 8 bytes
• Float — 4 bytes
• Double — 8 bytes

Java Other Numerical Types:

• BigInt
• BigDecimal

PHP References:

• http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.intval.php
• http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.settype.php

PHP Trivia:

• There’s no real concept of numeric data type in PHP (PHP 4.2 and newer supporters can argue me on this).
• You don’t set date type on numeric variables, PHP determines data type for you.
• 32 bit systems have a maximum signed integer range of -2147483648 to 2147483647.
• The maximum signed integer value for 64 bit systems is 9223372036854775807.

PHP Numerical “Types”:

• bool
• integer
• float

Perl References:

• http://perldoc.perl.org/functions/int.html
• http://perldoc.perl.org/perlnumber.html

Perl Numerical Types:

• Integer
• Float
• Decimal

Perl Trivia:

• Decimal strings may have an exponential notation part, as in "12.34e-56".

PHP Date Time

is more or less annoying. Before fanbois comment me to oblivion, let me explain why.

DateTime and DateTimeZone are objects. They can be created using new DateTime() and new DateTimeZone() calls.

Why is it not documented anywhere? Instead, the documentation points to global function calls.

The global function for new DateTime is date_create(), while global function for new DateTimeZone is timezone_open(). How intuitive.

Talk about intuitiveness. date() does not return DateTime object. It returns string, but of course, that’s how it always be.

Now let’s talk about timezone_open(…). If you pass an invalid parameter, it WILL return false, but, it will also throw:

Warning: timezone_open() [function.timezone_open]: Unknown or bad timezone

Damn, that behavior is reported here.

More about timezone, did you know that you can call setTimezone() on DateTime object? I found it out by lucky guess. Where’s that documented on php.net?

Finally, when calling dateObject->format(‘U’), I was expecting to get “Seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT)” –> pulled from php.net. But I didn’t get such results.

The seconds returned was not based on UTC timezone. It was based on the default php.ini, which was local timezone (PST).

So make sure before formatting to UTC, you call:

dateObject->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone(‘UTC’)) or

dateObject->setTimezone(timezone_open(‘UTC’)) or

don’t even bother creating object, just use: gmmktime()

Have fun with DateTime!

References:

• php.net – date_create()
• php.net – timezone_open()
• php.net – date()
• php.net – gmmktime()

Fotolog Backend

Flickr Backend

Early Flickr:

Flickr Architecture:

PHP annoyance: MySQL now() vs PHP time()

When your DBA is thinking differently than you, you might get:

MySQL

field: created_on

type: DATE

while, on PHP side:

$created_on = time();

Below is simple script that get rid of such annoyance.

From PHP to MySQL:

$created_on = date(‘Y-m-d H:i:s’, time());

From MySQL to PHP:

$query = “SELECT created_on FROM some_table WHERE id=1″;

$row = mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query($query));

$created_on = $row['created_on']; //created_on from MySQL in DATE format

list($date, $time) = explode(‘ ‘, $created_on);

list($y, $m, $d) = explode(‘-’, $date);

list($h, $i, $s) = explode(‘-’, $time);

$created_on = mktime($h, $i, $s, $m, $d, $y); //created_on timestamp

So much loving and hating with PHP

As a developer that’s been coding PHP for so long and as a neophyte Pythonista, I have finally arrived at this crossroad.

Why PHP has to be this über-sharp-double-edge sword? See what I mean below.

(+) Low Learning Curve

PHP is easy. Darn easy language. Many, like this one, said that PHP allows non-programmer doing programming. That argument, I think, is the strongest point of PHP. The easiness contributes to hobbyist productivity, open source growth, thriving dot com startups, and students.

(-) Low Learning Curve

The same ease of learning curve, also contributes to another PHP limitation. It is difficult to teach discipline programming in PHP. What is the need of modern design pattern if having everything in 1 php file works well? In my mind, that’s similar to: why bother folding my clean clothes if I can throw all of them on the floor. I could probably find my clothes faster if everything is on the floor (floor == hash map).

(+) Productivity

Because PHP is easy to pick up, it clearly delivers, “something”. Whether it is a non-enterprise spaghetti or well baked web framework with fabulous arrangement, PHP accounts for productivity to its developers. Increasing productivity is obviously one good solid point of PHP.

(-) Productivity

But the same productivity can also be undone by PHP itself. Either because of the syntax, security, or many other things. These caused the very same developers to go back, unravel the mess that’s either self-inflicted or, unfortunately, imposed by others (e.g. middleware “enterprise” companies). The easy way to dodge this bullet is to passed on the mess to the succeeding developers, but that’s… lame.

(+) The Speed of Prototyping

As the productivity increased, the speed of prototyping will naturally increased as well. This is most definitely a good thing. Until…

(-) The Speed of Prototyping

The prototype gives developers the illusion that it is “good enough” for live deployment. Is it? A lot of prototypes I’ve seen weren’t born with unit-test that actually represent real-life use case (Really… writing unit-tests is not that time consuming). On top of that many were born prematurely. Most of the time, the answer is not.

There will be more bullet points, as soon as I could think of.

What I’m Trying to Say

The more I use & read Python, the more I’m exposed to this perspective. To some readers, hold on your horses, I’m not trying to brew a flamebait here.

This is not PHP bashing and Python is kicking-PHP butt type of posting. I still love PHP, I still use it a lot, & I’m still CakePHP fanboi.

What I am trying to say is that, being Pythonic can apply to any languages. While writing PHP application, programmers can still apply good design.

Being Pythonic doesn’t mean using Python, it means not repeating yourself in coding, keeping everything simple, clear separation between logic and presentation, overall simply good design pattern.

Notes:

1. Even before I know Python, the similarities between my coding principles and Zen of Python is striking. Although I’m not 100% agreeing with “There should be one– and preferably only one –obvious way to do it”.

Fun with search engines: RoR vs Django vs cakePHP vs cherrypy vs J2EE

Below are the results of comparing RoR, Django, cakePHP, CherryPy, and J2EE:

1. Google Trends: Notice the sliding decline of J2EE
2. Sucks-Rocks.com: Notice that J2EE receives 2.6 as of today

This comparison is definitely “just for fun”, but somewhat reflecting my general sentiment towards Java.

More importantly, CherryPy is rocking real hard! Its simplicity is way beyond anything else I have ever seen:

1. Install Python
2. Install CherryPy
3. Make Web Application. That simple!
4. Optional, if you need database, slap SQLAlchemy as the model layer.

 Luckily, based on this 1 information below, job growth in awesome languages is increasing.

Extra Info:

• Comparison between CherryPy & Pylons.
• Comparison of many different frameworks – Utah Python user group
• Framework comparison between Django, RoR, and Symphony

Popsugar.com & TeamSugar

This is another not so new social networking site, but its idea is somehow refreshing and original.

• There are a lot of fashion blogs/magazines…
• There are a lot of gossip blogs…
• There are a lot of social network sites…

But there’s not a whole lot of those three combined in 1 site. It definitely has high advertisement values.

Popsugar is built using Drupal, one of the oldest open source CMS. It has tons of modules. A social networking app can easily be built on top of Drupal.

Detailed conversation about Popsugar’s technical specs & Drupal tips is recorded here.

Granted that Drupal source code is somewhat funky, along with its hook architecture, but it is well known to be flexible and capable to withstand medium-sized traffic.

References:

• The Popsugar Site
• Drupal page about Popsugar
• Drupal page about TeamSugar – The social network component of Popsugar
• More Drupal powered sites

PHP: Quick tip on setting up server-side logger

Changes in php.ini:

1. Around line:416: uncomment error_log variable, and assign it to your prefered logfile.txt. For example, on Windows box: error_log = “C:\log.txt”. Beware: make sure that PHP has permission to modify the log file on *NIX system.
2. If you want to NOT displaying PHP error on the screen: Around line 360, make sure that: display_errors = off

Grunt work required to make sure that things are logged properly:

use if block:
if(something->bad->going->to->happen)
{
//call this system function
error_log(‘the message why this is bad’);
}

use try catch:
try
{
//do something that’s possibly bad
}
catch(Exception $e)
{
error_log(‘Exception thrown: ‘.$e->getMessage());
}