Tuesday, March 2. 2010
Website Render Time with PHP >= 5.1
In CakePHP v1.3.x, there will no longer be an automatic dump of tons of information (probably because the DebugKit plugin can handle all of that information for us) when in debug mode. However, in my non-CakePHP websites, and even in my Cake websites, I have become accustomed to viewing the source to see a full render time for the page in an HTML comment. Thanks to the help of "jnay" over at CakeQs.org, I've found out about a new (as of PHP 5.1) $_SERVER variable argument called "REQUEST_TIME". It holds the UNIX timestamp of the initiation of the call.
By using this variable, along with the optional boolean argument for microtime (as of PHP 5.0.0), we can determine the HTML render time of our application with the following calculation in either our footer view/template, or controller (preferably in the last possible iteration of your project's render):
The echo is optional and used only as an example here; it simply depends on how you use the calculation in your script(s)/framework(s). This is much easier than starting the timer in the header and calculating the difference in the footer like I had to do in the PHP 4 days!
Remember, this is only for trivial estimations and comparisons. If you need to thoroughly evaluate your script(s) for time efficiency you should be using something else, such as Xdebug and a form of CacheGrind for your choice of OS.
By using this variable, along with the optional boolean argument for microtime (as of PHP 5.0.0), we can determine the HTML render time of our application with the following calculation in either our footer view/template, or controller (preferably in the last possible iteration of your project's render):
The echo is optional and used only as an example here; it simply depends on how you use the calculation in your script(s)/framework(s). This is much easier than starting the timer in the header and calculating the difference in the footer like I had to do in the PHP 4 days!
Remember, this is only for trivial estimations and comparisons. If you need to thoroughly evaluate your script(s) for time efficiency you should be using something else, such as Xdebug and a form of CacheGrind for your choice of OS.
Friday, February 19. 2010
Cassie Print Station - Automatically Close the Window
Cassie is a PC Reservation Management system software built for libraries, or other venues that wish to offer multiple PCs for the public to use. It also has a print management station. Unfortunately, as of the current version, when a user goes to view their own print jobs, their account window stays active "forever" until they, or someone else clicks on the "Close" button. When using with a JAMEX corporation coinbox, it also doesn't give the user their change until the window is closed (insert $1.00 for a $0.60 charge, it won't expell the $0.40 until the window is closed).
This is a bit of a problem.
I've used AutoIT, an automation scripting language, to automate the process of a user clicking on the close button. The makers of Cassie didn't make it easy though, I was unable to detect the actual button, thankfully ALT+F4 worked (ESC worked until the JAMEX portion was added, for some reason it stopped working afterward).
This uses the included Timers.au3 file to do most of the dirty work in detecting an idle state. If the computer is left idle for 45 seconds, it will issue ALT+F4 and close the window. ALT+F4 cannot close the application itself in this instance (and won't be issued unless that window exists and is active anyway). Although it checks every 100 milliseconds and runs at all times that the computer is turned on, I tested the resources it takes up...it was barely noticeable on an old P4 @ 2.80 GHz w/2.86 GB RAM (my work PC). This application (once compiled with AutoIT) should be placed in the Windows' Startup folder (or a respective registry key).
This is a bit of a problem.
I've used AutoIT, an automation scripting language, to automate the process of a user clicking on the close button. The makers of Cassie didn't make it easy though, I was unable to detect the actual button, thankfully ALT+F4 worked (ESC worked until the JAMEX portion was added, for some reason it stopped working afterward).
This uses the included Timers.au3 file to do most of the dirty work in detecting an idle state. If the computer is left idle for 45 seconds, it will issue ALT+F4 and close the window. ALT+F4 cannot close the application itself in this instance (and won't be issued unless that window exists and is active anyway). Although it checks every 100 milliseconds and runs at all times that the computer is turned on, I tested the resources it takes up...it was barely noticeable on an old P4 @ 2.80 GHz w/2.86 GB RAM (my work PC). This application (once compiled with AutoIT) should be placed in the Windows' Startup folder (or a respective registry key).
Friday, January 29. 2010
Server Load, Take 2
So I worked on the CakePHP plugin for Prowl a bit more, and in doing so, I created shell-based access to the plugin. I can now send Prowl messages from the console (i.e.: I can run PHP via cron to check on things and send myself the results, if necessary). A shell task I created was for server load, as a followup to my previous post. In working this out, I've modified the output for CakePHP's Shell::out() method so that it auto-wraps and indents a bit more nicely (my ticket in the LighthouseApp is here). Time for some output examples:
Issuing the Load Alert help call: cake prowl load_alert help
Sending a message is as simple as: cake prowl msg [apikey] ... it can get as advanced as cake prowl msg [apikey] [priority] [application] [event] [description]
The output for running the load alert command?
If it's above my arbitrarily set values, it'll send a different warning depending on the level to my Prowl-enabled device. By sending a "-silent 1" parameter to the command message, output is disabled (perfect for cron).
Please note that I don't have any styling for shell output (something I'll have to fix) so the pasted character spacing and newlines won't work as expected in my example output.
Issuing the Load Alert help call: cake prowl load_alert help
Sending a message is as simple as: cake prowl msg [apikey] ... it can get as advanced as cake prowl msg [apikey] [priority] [application] [event] [description]
The output for running the load alert command?
If it's above my arbitrarily set values, it'll send a different warning depending on the level to my Prowl-enabled device. By sending a "-silent 1" parameter to the command message, output is disabled (perfect for cron).
Please note that I don't have any styling for shell output (something I'll have to fix) so the pasted character spacing and newlines won't work as expected in my example output.
Thursday, October 22. 2009
Creating an array of date time values via PHP
I was working on my Reference Statistics Tracker for work, and ran in to a snag.
I am using eZ Components' ezGraph class to create image-based graphs on the fly. It's fast, efficient, and it looks nice - it can even render in SVG (I'll be using JPG or PNG...thanks IE). For my particular needs, I wanted the exported dataset to have a specific formatting to the keys, to represent the different values in my graphs. For instance, let's say I have the following stats from 100 users in our company, and the Operating System they use. This is purely fictitious:
So now I just had to pull the values from the database in the format I wanted. Well my keys in this case were dates, or times (span of days, or hours in a day, or month in a year, etc...). The values were still numeric values in this case. So, we're looking at something like:
The PHP function of range() just didn't cut it. Although I could have converted the datetime values to timestamp values (either via SQL or PHP), and used the 3rd parameter of the function to add the specific number of seconds needed, I was weary of doing that as I remember reading about issues that could cause (adding seconds to a timestamp value calculate future time). Besides, I'd still have to use array_walk() or array_map() to format my array's keys the way I wanted; that left yet another function, and a line of code for the call to array_walk/map. (My host does not yet have PHP 5.3.x, which will allow for lambda functions in array_map.) So, I decided to create my own little function, and figured I'd post it here in case (1)someone could use it and it'd help them out, or (2)someone thinks there's a more efficient way of doing this and wants to give feedback.
This could be useful for similar graphing/charting code, I don't think it's specific to eZ Components'. Perhaps it could be useful for something else that I can't think of. Have fun with it.
I am using eZ Components' ezGraph class to create image-based graphs on the fly. It's fast, efficient, and it looks nice - it can even render in SVG (I'll be using JPG or PNG...thanks IE). For my particular needs, I wanted the exported dataset to have a specific formatting to the keys, to represent the different values in my graphs. For instance, let's say I have the following stats from 100 users in our company, and the Operating System they use. This is purely fictitious:
array('Windows' => 90, 'OSX' => 6, 'Other' => 4);That specific array is crafted perfectly in the format that works well with eZ Components' Graphing class, for a simple bar chart, or a pie chart.So now I just had to pull the values from the database in the format I wanted. Well my keys in this case were dates, or times (span of days, or hours in a day, or month in a year, etc...). The values were still numeric values in this case. So, we're looking at something like:
array('HH:MM:SS' => 10);However, no matter how hard I tried, if there were no values inserted in to the database for a specific time, I could not return a value of null, or zero - even with an outer join. My next thought was to use something like array_merge() on the resulting dataset to fix it.The PHP function of range() just didn't cut it. Although I could have converted the datetime values to timestamp values (either via SQL or PHP), and used the 3rd parameter of the function to add the specific number of seconds needed, I was weary of doing that as I remember reading about issues that could cause (adding seconds to a timestamp value calculate future time). Besides, I'd still have to use array_walk() or array_map() to format my array's keys the way I wanted; that left yet another function, and a line of code for the call to array_walk/map. (My host does not yet have PHP 5.3.x, which will allow for lambda functions in array_map.) So, I decided to create my own little function, and figured I'd post it here in case (1)someone could use it and it'd help them out, or (2)someone thinks there's a more efficient way of doing this and wants to give feedback.
This could be useful for similar graphing/charting code, I don't think it's specific to eZ Components'. Perhaps it could be useful for something else that I can't think of. Have fun with it.
Tuesday, September 8. 2009
Adobe AIR, SQLite, DATETIME, and weirdness.
Here I was, minding my own business, when I try to insert the current time in to a SQLite database via Adobe AIR. AIR has some internal mechanisms to actually give you an error if you don't insert the proper type in to an SQLite database (unlike SQLite itself, which will let you put anything in to any type of field - it just casts the values, from what I understand). Well, it sort of inserted the current time. SQLite has a shorthand insertion value for DATETIME fields when inserting the string value of "now". It will insert (you guessed it), the current time as it is NOW. When you view the "current" time, however...let's say the current date and time is: Tuesday, September 8th 2009 at 2:46:21pm EDT (that is 4 hours behind GMT). So when viewing the "current" time that you just inserted in to your SQLite database, you will see:
Tue Sep 8 2009 18:46:21 -0400 GMT
...what?
Okay, I get the military time, but, wouldn't that be 6pm? It's showing my timezone as EDT (-4 hours from GMT), so why is it listing 4 hours difference?!
Well, the answer basically is: I have no idea why it lists the timezone the way it does. If you want to insert your local time, you need to use the following:
The shorthand property of "now" can also be written as "DATETIME('now')", and the DATETIME method (in SQLite) apparently takes more than one parameter, and had I known what my issue was in the first place, it would have been easier to track down. You can find (as of September 8, 2009) SQLite's date and time methods at the following URL: SQLite Date and Time Functions.
Hopefully someone else doing a web search while grasping for straws might find this, and it'll help them out, rather than have them waste the better part of a day scratching their head, thinking of a workaround but knowing they must be missing something simple.
Tue Sep 8 2009 18:46:21 -0400 GMT
...what?
Okay, I get the military time, but, wouldn't that be 6pm? It's showing my timezone as EDT (-4 hours from GMT), so why is it listing 4 hours difference?!
Well, the answer basically is: I have no idea why it lists the timezone the way it does. If you want to insert your local time, you need to use the following:
The shorthand property of "now" can also be written as "DATETIME('now')", and the DATETIME method (in SQLite) apparently takes more than one parameter, and had I known what my issue was in the first place, it would have been easier to track down. You can find (as of September 8, 2009) SQLite's date and time methods at the following URL: SQLite Date and Time Functions.
Hopefully someone else doing a web search while grasping for straws might find this, and it'll help them out, rather than have them waste the better part of a day scratching their head, thinking of a workaround but knowing they must be missing something simple.