Why They Are Bad

Template languages like Smarty are essentially another programming language built on top of PHP. This is a problem because php is what we call an interpreted language which means every time you load the page it is parsed on the fly and is outputted. When you add a template language on top of this the template language has to be interpreted, converted to php and then interpreted as php and outputted. This doubles the amount of work that the cpu has to do to return the page the user requested.

At one point in an application I’ve been working on, I noticed that smarty was accounting for 60% of page load time. The page load time was still under a second but thats a huge amount of the process just for smarty to convert to php.

What About Designers!?

Using a template language just because you are working with designers is a poor excuse. Those designers could just as easily learn PHP Shorthand as they could something link Smarty. By teaching your designers small amounts of PHP, your giving them the knowledge to help with other areas of your application without having to learn something new.

When It’s Appropriate

Sometimes a template language is the perfect solution. For instance if you were creating a CMS application where your users would have to edit template code you might want to use a template language. It would allow you to restrict which functions could be executed on the views side so that your application would be more secure. This is ok for CMS type apps like WordPress and Expression Engine, but its usually something you dont need when your app is just something that your company will be editing.

For use with codeigniter views, I have my own template library built and extended off of the initial work of Phil Sturgeon. You can take a look at his library here http://github.com/philsturgeon/codeigniter-template and I may release mine in the future.

Security

Through the development cycle of a web application, you are going to write hundreds if not thousands of queries for each specific thing you want your application to do. That means for each query you write you will have to wrap it with functions that make it safe so that SQL injection and other malicious things cannot take place. Now say if you write 1000 queries through he course of your development and you forget to properly escape them 1% of the time (very very conservative). You will have 10 possible places for your malicious users to bring down your system.

If you had used Active Record you wouldn’t have had that happen. Active Record doesn’t forget to escape and filter those queries. You wouldn’t have a client calling you at 3am because their pride and joy is displaying porn ads or even worse that their customer’s personal information has been leaked to hackers.

Performance

One of his concerns was the performance impact that the Active Record class imposed. Coming from someone who uses the AR class every day in my 9-5, I have never noticed a significant performance impact on any of the queries I write. I dont know the exact benchmarks of it but I would think the most it adds to any query would by around .0001 seconds. I think the small impact it has on your application is well worth the peace of mind that all of your queries are secure from the few malicious users you are bound to cross paths with.

Complex Queries

The Active Record class does a pretty good job at 99% of the queries you are most likely to run. It powers through insert/update/select/delete queries with no problem at all. However it is not perfect. If your application demands a few complex queries you can very easily switch back to straight SQL with $this->db->query(); . This way you get the best of both worlds. You can be secure in your cookie cutter queries that you write all the time but when you have to do something that is a little more complicated you have the ability to switch very easily.

In my opinion there isn’t a real reason not to use CodeIgniter’s Active Record. The benefits it provides far outweigh the downsides. Unless of course your someone who never makes a mistake in programming, in that case forget everything I have told you.

Ever since I started using CodeIgniter about a year and a half ago, I feel that my coding style has drastically improved as well as the speed, security, and reliability of my applications. This is mostly due to CodeIgniter’s MVC approach to the structure of the application. It separates your code into three stages:

• Model – Used to interact with your database or data source and return the data back to your application
• View – Holds all of the display logic such as html, css and javascript
• Controller – Sort of the middleman, used to coordinate all the actions from Models and Libraries into a View to display to the user’s browser

CRUD

CRUD (Create, read, update and delete) is a way of structuring your code that interfaces with your database. Those four actions handle 99% of the actions you will do with the data in your database so why should we duplicate functionality every time we need to do something? For my examples I will be using the Active Record Class in CodeIgniter but it would be just as easy for you to use simple SQL statements in your PHP code.

Ok that’s enough of the vocabulary lesson, lets get into some code.

Start of the Model

All we are doing here is declaring the model as “Blog_model” and we will save this code in blog_model.php in the models folder in Codeigniter.

Create

Creating data is pretty simple, especially in codeigniter. You should only need a single function to create data for each table in your database. This is how i structure my insert functions.

Now what the code above is actually doing is this. When i call $this->whatever_model->insert_blog_post($data); , i pass a $data variable which is actually just an array with the index names matching to the database field names. If you are familiar with CodeIgniter’s Active Record Class this approach is nothing new to you.

Read

Reading information from a database is nothing new. You send a select query to a database and it returns results, how could it get any simpler? Well what usually ends up happening over the development of an application is that the developer will create multiple functions that essentially do the same thing. One function will query the database based on the Unique ID # of an item. Another will query checking to see if a particular title in that blog post already exists. So how can these be combined? Well you can create a single function that actually interacts with the database. It is passed a few parameters that tell it what query to run and it does just that. This function is called by other functions that pass those specific parameters. Here is an example.

Update

Now updating an row (or many rows) in the database is just as easy as adding a row. The first parameter is your where statement which includes the conditions that the rows must have to be updates. The second parameter is the data that will be inserted into those selected rows.

Pretty simple right? Now all you have to do from anywhere in your application to update a row in blog_posts is $this->blog_model->update_blog_post(array(‘ID’ => 5), array(‘title’ => ‘Getting Started with CRUD’));

Delete

Just as you might suspect, deleting a post is just as simple as adding or updating a post.

Now just run the command $this->blog_model->delete_blog_post(array(‘ID’ => ’223′));

Thats it!

If you have any questions or comments be sure to leave them below!

I use Mozenda all the time. When scraping crappy static html pages it is very difficult to find consistency with markup. So thats where Mozenda comes in. I create an agent to scrape a collection of data in a specific order. It can select data between html tags, select data thats supposed to be in one featured place on the page, or it can skip over it if the data you are looking for is not there. It is truely a lifesaving service for anyone that updates mass amounts of data on a regular basis. You cant beat the price of $49/month either (just think how much you would have to pay someone to scrape all of that data for you). I have created a CodeIgniter Library (regular php class compatible) to interact with this api in a easy way. Now lets get to it!

Download

Documentation

First off you need to set your api key and set what format you would like the results to be returned to you in. If you don’t have an api key then

1. Login to your account at http://Login.Mozenda.com

2. Click the ‘Account’ link located in the top right corner of the web page.

3. Look for the ‘API Web Service Key’ section under the ‘Account Details’ tab, then click ‘Generate a New Key’. You will be required to provide this key in all requests to the API.

If you already have your API key then all you need to worry about is setting your output format. The two options are array (php array) and json.

Configuring Your Library

[code language='php']
$config_array = array('output_format' => 'json', 'api_key' => 'MY-SUPER-SECRET-KEY');
$this->mozenda_api->config($config_array);
[/code]

Collection.GetList

Returns a list of collections for an account

[code language='php']

$data = $this->mozenda_api->collection_get_list();

[/code]

Collection.GetViews

Gets a list of views for a particular collection

[code language='php']

$data = $this->mozenda_api->collection_get_views($collection_id);

[/code]

Collection.GetFields

Returns a list of fields that are in that collection with their details

[code language='php']

$data = $this->mozenda_api->collection_get_fields($collection_id);

[/code]

Collection.AddItem

Adds an item to a collection with the values specified.

[code language='php']

$items = array('Username' => 'John', 'Phone_Number' => '555-0123');

$data = $this->mozenda_api->collection_add_item($collection_id, $items);

[/code]

Collection.UpdateItem

Updates an item in the collection.

[code language='php']

$items = array('Username' => 'Peter', 'Phone_Number' => '555-9876');

$data = $this->mozenda_api->collection_update_item($collection_id, $item_id, $items);

[/code]

Collection.DeleteItem

Deletes an item from a collection.

[code language='php']

$data = $this->mozenda_api->collection_delete_item($collection_id, $item_id);

[/code]

Collection.Clear

Clears the contents of a collection but leaves the collection intact.

[code language='php']

$data = $this->mozenda_api->collection_clear($collection_id);

[/code]

Collection.Delete

Deletes the collection and all data within it.

[code language='php']

$data = $this->mozenda_api->collection_delete($collection_id);

[/code]

View.GetItems

Returns items from a view.

[code language='php']

$data = $this->mozenda_api->view_get_items($view_id);

[/code]

Agent.GetList

Returns a list of your agents with their ID, Name, Settings, Description, and other important information.

[code language='php']

$data = $this->mozenda_api->agent_get_list();

[/code]

Agent.GetJobs

Returns a list of your agent’s jobs with detailed information.

[code language='php']

$data = $this->mozenda_api->agent_get_jobs($agent_id);

[/code]

Agent.Run

Starts or resumes the Agent.

[code language='php']

$data = $this->mozenda_api->agent_run($agent_id);

[/code]

Agent.Delete

Deletes an agent and all associated schedules for that agent.

[code language='php']

$data = $this->mozenda_api->agent_delete($agent_id)

[/code]

Job.Get

Gets the details of a job by the Job ID.

[code language='php']

$data = $this->mozenda_api->job_get($job_id);

[/code]

Job.Cancel

Cancels a Job in the system. Note, a job must be in a Paused or Error State to cancel a job.

[code language='php']

$data = $this->mozenda_api->job_cancel($job_id);

[/code]

Job.Pause

Issues the ‘Pause’ command for a job currently running in the system.

[code language='php']

$data = $this->mozenda_api->job_pause($job_id);

[/code]

Job.Resume

Resumes a job that is in a Paused or Error state.

[code language='php']

$data = $this->mozenda_api->job_resume($job_id);

[/code]

I would really recommend taking a look at the official documentation on the mozenda website show here.

That’s It!

That pretty much wraps it all up. If you have any questions or find a bug please use the comments and ill do my best to fix it.

NOTE: The descriptions of what the commands do was copied from the mozenda documentation to make it easier for the end user to understand. I do not take any credit in writing the descriptions.

So I created this library mostly out of boredom. It includes functions to interact with all of the options & functionality that the current version (“EDGE”) provides. It was designed to be a CodeIgniter library but it can easily be ported over to php in just a few steps. It allows you to output the data in json, array, or raw (the format that the request was [json, xml]). So lets get to it!

Download

[download id="1"]

Documentation

Configuration

There are several options you can set in the configuration that will make the library behave differently.

• username – obviously your username for the envato marketplaces
• api_key – your api key for the marketplaces ( you should never set this in view of the public, its sort of like a password ).
• api_format – the format you want the library to request, this can be altered with the next option (output format) – options incude : json, array, xml (default is json)
• output_format – the format you want the library to return to you. options: array (default), json, raw (unaltered/formatted data straight from the feed) note: to get xml format back you need to set this to raw and set api_format to xml

This is how you can set the config information with a simple function and array.
[code language='php']
$this->envato_api->config(array('api_format' => 'json', 'output_format' => 'array', 'username' => 'joesmith', 'api_key' => 'MYSUPERSECRETKEY'));
[/code]

Place the configuration code above the functions listed below.

Public Functions

These are functions that do not require a username and api key to access. They are mostly things such as the latest files on the marketplaces, the most popular threads, etc.

Blog Posts

A list of blog posts for a particular site. Requires a site parameter.

[code language='php']
$data = $this->envato_api->public_blog_posts('sitename');
$this->evanto_api->clear();
[/code]

Active Threads

Threads with the most recent messages activity. Requires a site parameter.

[code language='php']
$data = $this->envato_api->public_threads_active('sitename');
$this->evanto_api->clear();
[/code]

Number of Files in Categories

Shows the number of files in the major categories of a particular site. Requires a site paramater.

[code language='php']
$data = $this->envato_api->public_files_number('sitename');
$this->evanto_api->clear();
[/code]

Category New Files

New files, recently uploaded to a particular site. Requires site and category paramaters.

[code language='php']
$data = $this->envato_api->public_files_new('sitename', 'categoryname');
$this->evanto_api->clear();
[/code]

Popular Files

Returns the popular files for a particular site. Requires a site paramater.

[code language='php']
$data = $this->envato_api->public_files_popular('sitename');
$this->evanto_api->clear();
[/code]

New User Files

Shows the newest 10 files a user has uploaded to a particualr site. Requires username and site paramaters.

[code language='php']
$data = $this->envato_api->public_files_user_new('username', 'sitename');
$this->evanto_api->clear();
[/code]

Random New Files

Shows a random list of newly uploaded files from a particular site (i.e. like the homepage). Requires a site paramater.

[code language='php']
$data = $this->envato_api->public_files_new_random('sitename');
$this->evanto_api->clear();
[/code]

API Releases

Returns Release and Set information for the API (used to generate the documentation).

[code language='php']
$data = $this->envato_api->public_releases();
$this->evanto_api->clear();
[/code]

Private User Functions

These are functions that DO require a username and API key to access. They include things such as account information, billing statements, etc. Make sure to set your username & api key inside the script or with the config function above.

User Vitals

Return a users username and balance.

[code language='php']
$data = $this->envato_api->user_vitals();
$this->evanto_api->clear();
[/code]

User Account

Returns the first name, surname, total earnings, total deposits, balance (deposits + earnings), country and current commission rate for sales.

[code language='php']
$data = $this->envato_api->user_account();
$this->evanto_api->clear();
[/code]

User Earnings & Monthly Sales

Returns the monthly sales data, as displayed on the user’s earnings page.

[code language='php']
$data = $this->envato_api->user_earnings();
$this->evanto_api->clear();
[/code]

User Statement

Returns the last 100 events as seen on the user’s statement page.

[code language='php']
$data = $this->envato_api->user_statement();
$this->evanto_api->clear();
[/code]

User Recent Sales

Shows the 50 recent sales of the user’s items.

[code language='php']
$data = $this->envato_api->user_recent_sales();
$this->evanto_api->clear();
[/code]

User Multiple

This function will return multiple sets of data at once. if you dont supply anything in the parameters it will return all of the results by default. The options inside the array below are the only options you have. You can use as many or as little as you need.

[code language='php']
$data = $this->envato_api->user_multiple(array('account', 'vitals', 'earnings-adn-sales-by-month', 'statement', 'recent-sales'));
$this->evanto_api->clear();
[/code]

Done!

We are all done! If you have any questions, suggestions, bugs or just wanna say thanks then reply in the comments.