upgraded wordpress from 2.0 to 2.7.1 April 15, 2009
Posted by chris in : rant , add a commentThe first time I tried this the entire blog came crashing down. I decided I’d wait until a night when I had more time and that night didn’t come for another few months until tonight. This time I elected to follow an incremental upgrade approach by moving from 2.0 to 2.1, 2.1 to 2.2, 2.2 to 2.3 and so on and hitting the wp-admin/upgrade.php file after each upgrade had completed. Of course I was careful not to overwrite the wp-content folder. It worked great and I’m loving the new interface.
updated cnizz.com portfolio April 15, 2009
Posted by chris in : press , add a commentI’ve changed the layout of my portfolio section, implemented MooTools slimbox, and added three recent projects. Go ahead and check out the portfolio.
using the geonames web service with php April 14, 2009
Posted by chris in : php , 2commentsThe GeoNames web service API, http://www.geonames.org/export/web-services.html, can be used to retrieve information on foreign countries such as postal code, city name, country code, longitude, and latitude. This information can come in very handy in variety of circumstances. I used the information obtained from the API to automate updating a table of countries with the postal code (just needed one in this instance) of every capital in the world.
First you will need to use cURL. I have written a simple cURL class:
/**
* Curl: psuedo implements cUrl for posting data to td ameritrade api
* @author cnizz.com
* @param void
* @uses *cUrl
*/
class Curl
{
/**
* constructor
* @author cn
* @param url(str),paramArr(array),$jsession_id(str)
*/
function __construct(){
}
/**
* post: posts parameters to url
* @author cnizz.com
* @param url(str), paramArr(array), returnString((bool - forces return as string)
* @return array(default)
*/
public function post($url,$paramArr=array(),$returnsString=0,$url_encode=0)
{
$string = $this->returnPostParamStr($paramArr);
if($url_encode==1){
$string=urlencode($string)."\n\n";
}
$ch = curl_init(); /// initialize a cURL session
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $string);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, '60');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$cUrlResponse = curl_exec($ch);
$httpResponseArr = curl_getinfo($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$return = $this->xml2array($cUrlResponse);
if(!is_array($return) || $return['result']=='FAIL' || $httpResponseArr['http_code']!=200)
{
$return['custome_error'] = $cUrlResponse;
$return['custom_http_code'] = $httpResponseArr['http_code'];
}
return $return;
}
/**
* returnPostParamStr: accepts an array and returns a parameter string
* @author cnizz.com
* @param array (key is post name, value is post attribute)
* @return string
*/
public function returnPostParamStr($val)
{
$string='';
if(is_array($val))
{
foreach($val as $k => $i)
{
if($j==0){
$string.="$k=$i";
$j=1;
}
else if($k=='|S'){
$string.="$k=$i";
}
else{
$string.="&$k=$i";
}
}
}
return $string;
}
/**
* xml2array: converts xml to an array
* @author unknown, modified by cn
* @link http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.xml-parse.php#87920
* @param xmlStr(string)
* @return array
*/
public function xml2array($xmlStr, $get_attributes = 1, $priority = 'tag')
{
// I renamed $url to $xmlStr, $url was the first parameter in the method if you
// want to load from a URL then rename $xmlStr to $url everywhere in this method
$contents = "";
if (!function_exists('xml_parser_create'))
{
return array ();
}
$parser = xml_parser_create('');
// commented out since I already have the xml text stored in memory
// this reads XML in from a URL
/*
if (!($fp = @ fopen($url, 'rb')))
{
return array ();
}
while (!feof($fp))
{
$contents .= fread($fp, 8192);
}
fclose($fp);
*/
xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_TARGET_ENCODING, "UTF-8");
xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
xml_parse_into_struct($parser, trim($xmlStr), $xml_values);
xml_parser_free($parser);
if (!$xml_values)
return; //Hmm...
$xml_array = array ();
$parents = array ();
$opened_tags = array ();
$arr = array ();
$current = & $xml_array;
$repeated_tag_index = array ();
foreach ($xml_values as $data)
{
unset ($attributes, $value);
extract($data);
$result = array ();
$attributes_data = array ();
if (isset ($value))
{
if ($priority == 'tag')
$result = $value;
else
$result['value'] = $value;
}
if (isset ($attributes) and $get_attributes)
{
foreach ($attributes as $attr => $val)
{
if ($priority == 'tag')
$attributes_data[$attr] = $val;
else
$result['attr'][$attr] = $val; //Set all the attributes in a array called 'attr'
}
}
if ($type == "open")
{
$parent[$level -1] = & $current;
if (!is_array($current) or (!in_array($tag, array_keys($current))))
{
$current[$tag] = $result;
if ($attributes_data)
$current[$tag . '_attr'] = $attributes_data;
$repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level] = 1;
$current = & $current[$tag];
}
else
{
if (isset ($current[$tag][0]))
{
$current[$tag][$repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level]] = $result;
$repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level]++;
}
else
{
$current[$tag] = array (
$current[$tag],
$result
);
$repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level] = 2;
if (isset ($current[$tag . '_attr']))
{
$current[$tag]['0_attr'] = $current[$tag . '_attr'];
unset ($current[$tag . '_attr']);
}
}
$last_item_index = $repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level] - 1;
$current = & $current[$tag][$last_item_index];
}
}
elseif ($type == "complete")
{
if (!isset ($current[$tag]))
{
$current[$tag] = $result;
$repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level] = 1;
if ($priority == 'tag' and $attributes_data)
$current[$tag . '_attr'] = $attributes_data;
}
else
{
if (isset ($current[$tag][0]) and is_array($current[$tag]))
{
$current[$tag][$repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level]] = $result;
if ($priority == 'tag' and $get_attributes and $attributes_data)
{
$current[$tag][$repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level] . '_attr'] = $attributes_data;
}
$repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level]++;
}
else
{
$current[$tag] = array (
$current[$tag],
$result
);
$repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level] = 1;
if ($priority == 'tag' and $get_attributes)
{
if (isset ($current[$tag . '_attr']))
{
$current[$tag]['0_attr'] = $current[$tag . '_attr'];
unset ($current[$tag . '_attr']);
}
if ($attributes_data)
{
$current[$tag][$repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level] . '_attr'] = $attributes_data;
}
}
$repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level]++; //0 and 1 index is already taken
}
}
}
elseif ($type == 'close')
{
$current = & $parent[$level -1];
}
}
return ($xml_array);
}
}
Using the web service
include_once 'Curl.class.php';
$curl = new Curl();
$array = $curl->post('http://ws.geonames.org/postalCodeSearch?',array('placename'=>'Berlin'));
print_r($array);