FAQ

[John Dunlop]

[Posted to comp.lang.php and CC mailed to Scott Orsburn]

http://www.kaomso.com/documents/phpfaq.html

Some of the questions you answer in your FAQ are, how shall
I put it, not so frequently asked. That's not to say they
shouldn't be treated in a FAQ, but priority, I suggest,
ought to be given to the more frequently asked ones. Thus,
to help you develop your FAQ, I have composed a list. I
hope the forming of questions and answers will be a peer-
reviewed process which everybody here can take part in.

1. register globals
2. 'headers already sent'
3. @ before function calls
4. address of referrer
5. To GET or to POST
6. HTML emails
7. connect to another computer
8. tutorials, books, and websites
9. installation
10. date manipulation
11. PDF file creation

There are, of course, more.

I look forward to the next update.

--
Jock

[Geoff Berrow]

I noticed that Message-ID:
<MP************************@News.Individual.NET> from John Dunlop
contained the following:

1. register globals
2. 'headers already sent'
3. @ before function calls
4. address of referrer
5. To GET or to POST
6. HTML emails
7. connect to another computer
8. tutorials, books, and websites
9. installation
10. date manipulation
11. PDF file creation

I'd put editors and IDEs at 3

--
Geoff Berrow (put thecat out to email)
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the committee's, mine.
Simple RFDs http://www.ckdog.co.uk/rfdmaker/

[John Dunlop]

Geoff Berrow wrote:

I noticed that Message-ID:
<MP************************@News.Individual.NET> from John Dunlop
contained the following:

1. register globals
2. 'headers already sent'
3. @ before function calls
4. address of referrer
5. To GET or to POST
6. HTML emails
7. connect to another computer
8. tutorials, books, and websites
9. installation
10. date manipulation
11. PDF file creation

I'd put editors and IDEs at 3

Yes, that is a frequently discussed topic. (Sorry, apart
from the first two items, that list wasn't meant to be in
order.)

Any more, anyone? Some questions on MySQL perhaps, and on
the GD library.

--
Jock

[Geoff Berrow]

I noticed that Message-ID:
<MP************************@News.Individual.NET> from John Dunlop
contained the following:

Yes, that is a frequently discussed topic. (Sorry, apart
from the first two items, that list wasn't meant to be in
order.)

Any more, anyone? Some questions on MySQL perhaps, and on
the GD library.

Sessions and cookies
Confusion with client side programming
email address validation
How can I learn to write a full blown CMS in five minutes
Why won't x work (without posting code)
Why won't this work (posting too much code)
Will you write this for me (or words to that effect)

More as I think of them

--
Geoff Berrow (put thecat out to email)
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the committee's, mine.
Simple RFDs http://www.ckdog.co.uk/rfdmaker/

[juglesh]

"John Dunlop" <us*********@john.dunlop.name> wrote in message
news:MP************************@News.Individual.NE T...

[Posted to comp.lang.php and CC mailed to Scott Orsburn]

http://www.kaomso.com/documents/phpfaq.html

Some of the questions you answer in your FAQ are, how shall
I put it, not so frequently asked. That's not to say they
shouldn't be treated in a FAQ, but priority, I suggest,
ought to be given to the more frequently asked ones. Thus,
to help you develop your FAQ, I have composed a list. I
hope the forming of questions and answers will be a peer-
reviewed process which everybody here can take part in.

1. register globals
2. 'headers already sent'
3. @ before function calls
hey, what _is_ with that @? i couldnt find the manual page for it.
4. address of referrer
5. To GET or to POST
6. HTML emails
7. connect to another computer
8. tutorials, books, and websites
9. installation
10. date manipulation
11. PDF file creation

There are, of course, more.

I look forward to the next update.

--
Jock

[Jacob Atzen]

On 2005-02-28, juglesh <ju*****@nospamRadioKDUG.com> wrote:

hey, what _is_ with that @? i couldnt find the manual page for it.

<http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.operators.errorcontrol.php>

--
Cheers
- Jacob Atzen

[John Dunlop]

juglesh wrote:

hey, what _is_ with that @?
That's a good suggestion for the question. So we have the
question

'What is with that @?'

And, lifted straight from the Manual, the answer:

PHP supports one error control operator: the at sign (@).
When prepended to an expression in PHP, any error messages
that might be generated by that expression will be ignored.

If the track_errors feature is enabled, any error message
generated by the expression will be saved in the variable
$php_errormsg. This variable will be overwritten on each
error, so check early if you want to use it.

Note: The @-operator works only on expressions. A simple
rule of thumb is: if you can take the value of something,
you can prepend the @ operator to it. For instance, you can
prepend it to variables, function and include() calls,
constants, and so forth. You cannot prepend it to function
or class definitions, or conditional structures such as if
and foreach, and so forth.

Note: The "@" error-control operator prefix will not disable
messages that are the result of parse errors.

Warning

Currently the "@" error-control operator prefix will even
disable error reporting for critical errors that will
terminate script execution. Among other things, this means
that if you use "@" to suppress errors from a certain
function and either it isn't available or has been mistyped,
the script will die right there with no indication as to
why.

i couldnt find the manual page for it.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/languag...rorcontrol.php

--
Jock

[Chung Leong]

"John Dunlop" <us*********@john.dunlop.name> wrote in message
news:MP************************@News.Individual.NE T...

[Posted to comp.lang.php and CC mailed to Scott Orsburn]

http://www.kaomso.com/documents/phpfaq.html

Some of the questions you answer in your FAQ are, how shall
I put it, not so frequently asked. That's not to say they
shouldn't be treated in a FAQ, but priority, I suggest,
ought to be given to the more frequently asked ones. Thus,
to help you develop your FAQ, I have composed a list. I
hope the forming of questions and answers will be a peer-
reviewed process which everybody here can take part in.

1. register globals
2. 'headers already sent'
3. @ before function calls
4. address of referrer
5. To GET or to POST
6. HTML emails
7. connect to another computer
8. tutorials, books, and websites
9. installation
10. date manipulation
11. PDF file creation

There are, of course, more.

I look forward to the next update.

Good idea, John. Since the regulars of this group actually answer questions
frequently, we know what should be on the list.

I wonder if PDF creation is worthy of 11. It seems people ask about file
download more often. I would nominate character encoding ahead of PDF too.

Question 7 could be broken up into a number of more specific ones. "How to
get a web page?" is fairly often asked. "How to post a form?" is too.

[John Dunlop]

Chung Leong wrote:

Good idea, John. Since the regulars of this group actually answer questions
frequently, we know what should be on the list.
I'm quite happy for Scott Orsburn to host and maintain the
FAQ, but its development must involve this newsgroup. After
all, it can hardly be called the comp.lang.php FAQ if
nothing in it originated here.
I wonder if PDF creation is worthy of 11. It seems people ask about file
download more often. I would nominate character encoding ahead of PDF too.
Those are two issues which should rank high on the list.

Should questions that are strictly off-topic, or at least
better dealt with in another group, be treated in a c.l.php
FAQ? I reckon if they're frequently asked here, but dealt
with in another FAQ, then a pointer should suffice.
Question 7 could be broken up into a number of more specific ones. "How to
get a web page?" is fairly often asked. "How to post a form?" is too.

Good.

Keep 'em coming! Hopefully Scott will read this thread.

--
Jock

[Chung Leong]

"John Dunlop" <us*********@john.dunlop.name> wrote in message
news:MP************************@News.Individual.NE T...

Should questions that are strictly off-topic, or at least
better dealt with in another group, be treated in a c.l.php
FAQ? I reckon if they're frequently asked here, but dealt
with in another FAQ, then a pointer should suffice.

If it's frequently asked here, I guess we should at least list the question.

I wonder if it wouldn't be a better idea to keep the list in the newgroup
itself and mirror it on a web site. As you said, the answers needs to be
peer-reviewed. And no one person knows everything. Maybe each of us should
just grab a question and start a thread. At least that would get us the raw
info. I can start.

[Geoff Berrow]

I noticed that Message-ID: <kN********************@comcast.com> from
Chung Leong contained the following:

Maybe each of us should
just grab a question and start a thread. At least that would get us the raw
info. I can start.

I'm surprised there isn't more interest in this. Do people really want
a FAQ?

--
Geoff Berrow (put thecat out to email)
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the committee's, mine.
Simple RFDs http://www.ckdog.co.uk/rfdmaker/

[Chris Hope]

Geoff Berrow wrote:

I noticed that Message-ID: <kN********************@comcast.com> from
Chung Leong contained the following:

Maybe each of us should
just grab a question and start a thread. At least that would get us
the raw info. I can start.

I'm surprised there isn't more interest in this. Do people really
want a FAQ?

I think an FAQ is an excellent idea. I should be able to help and spend
a little time later in the week creating answers for some of the
sections.

--
Chris Hope - The Electric Toolbox - http://www.electrictoolbox.com/

[Philip Ronan]

Geoff Berrow wrote:

I noticed that Message-ID: <kN********************@comcast.com> from
Chung Leong contained the following:

Maybe each of us should
just grab a question and start a thread. At least that would get us the raw
info. I can start.

I'm surprised there isn't more interest in this. Do people really want
a FAQ?

I'm interested too -- I'm just rather busy right now :-(

I'll have a bit more free time later this month. I don't mind hosting the
FAQ either (if you need somewhere to put it).

Phil

--
phil [dot] ronan @ virgin [dot] net
http://vzone.virgin.net/phil.ronan/

[Gary L. Burnore]

On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 09:05:38 +0000, Philip Ronan
<in*****@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Geoff Berrow wrote:

I noticed that Message-ID: <kN********************@comcast.com> from
Chung Leong contained the following:

Maybe each of us should
just grab a question and start a thread. At least that would get us the raw
info. I can start.

I'm surprised there isn't more interest in this. Do people really want
a FAQ?

I'm interested too -- I'm just rather busy right now :-(

I'll have a bit more free time later this month. I don't mind hosting the
FAQ either (if you need somewhere to put it).

Many of us could host such a thing but that's NOT the proper place for
it. Mixing USENet and any other medium (W3, Email, etc) is NOT a good
thing. The FAQ should be maintained by one or more regulars of the
geoup and posted TO the group on a regular basis as it is in most
other comp.* groups.
--
gburnore@databasix dot com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
How you look depends on where you go.
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DataBasix | ÝÛ³ºÝ³Þ³ºÝ³³Ýۺݳ޳ºÝ³Ý³Þ³ºÝ³ÝÝÛ³
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Black Helicopter Repair Svcs Division | Official Proof of Purchase
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Want one? GET one! http://signup.databasix.com
================================================== =========================

[Philip Ronan]

Gary L. Burnore wrote:

On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 09:05:38 +0000, Philip Ronan
<in*****@invalid.invalid> wrote:

I'll have a bit more free time later this month. I don't mind hosting the
FAQ either (if you need somewhere to put it).

Many of us could host such a thing but that's NOT the proper place for
it. Mixing USENet and any other medium (W3, Email, etc) is NOT a good
thing. The FAQ should be maintained by one or more regulars of the
geoup and posted TO the group on a regular basis as it is in most
other comp.* groups.

OK, OK. It was only a suggestion(!)

--
phil [dot] ronan @ virgin [dot] net
http://vzone.virgin.net/phil.ronan/

[John Dunlop]

Chung Leong wrote:

I wonder if it wouldn't be a better idea to keep the list in the newgroup
itself and mirror it on a web site.
I'll go with that. It should be easier for people to
contribute then.
As you said, the answers needs to be peer-reviewed. And no one person knows
everything. Maybe each of us should just grab a question and start a thread.
At least that would get us the raw info. I can start.

Great!

--
Jock

[R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah]

John Dunlop wrote:

I wonder if it wouldn't be a better idea to keep the list in the newgroup itself and mirror it on a web site.

I'll go with that. It should be easier for people to
contribute then.

What about having a single thread (say for example, "FAQ Project" or
so) in which the contributors can modifiy the previous post and add as
a new post (Kinda workaround for Wiki. I'm not sure if phpSt.Jochen is
still here)

--
<?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/

[R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah]

Geoff Berrow wrote:

Maybe each of us should
just grab a question and start a thread. At least that would get us the rawinfo. I can start.
I'm surprised there isn't more interest in this. Do people really

want a FAQ?

As you know, I had much of interest in this FAQ stuff and I even
compiled few questions and answers. But, I intentionally trashed many
stuffs as most of the questions I've compiled are merely RT*M type
questions and the rest I lost in poor CD.

I'm quite optimistic about the FAQ. But, I think, it shouldn't be
_just_ a mirror of the PHP manual. For example, Chung's answers could
have been shortened to links to manual page (www.php.net/file,
www.php.net/file_get_contents, www.php.net/stream_context_create &
www.php.net/curl).

--
<?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/

[Chung Leong]

"R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah" <ng**********@rediffmail.com> wrote in message
news:11*********************@l41g2000cwc.googlegro ups.com...

I'm quite optimistic about the FAQ. But, I think, it shouldn't be
_just_ a mirror of the PHP manual. For example, Chung's answers could
have been shortened to links to manual page (www.php.net/file,
www.php.net/file_get_contents, www.php.net/stream_context_create &
www.php.net/curl).

I think if we stick by the criteria of whether a question is in fact
frequently asked, we'll end up with something that's genuinely useful. We
need to avoid going into lecture mode. Instead of a long winded explanation,
just provide enough info so the reader would find the necessary info in the
manual himself. Basically, we should answer the question as though someone
actually asked it here.

I disagree with providing just links. It isn't a friendly way to answer a
question--borderline rude even. We should definitely aim for brevity though.

[Chris Hope]

Chung Leong wrote:

"R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah" <ng**********@rediffmail.com> wrote in message
news:11*********************@l41g2000cwc.googlegro ups.com...

I'm quite optimistic about the FAQ. But, I think, it shouldn't be
_just_ a mirror of the PHP manual. For example, Chung's answers could
have been shortened to links to manual page (www.php.net/file,
www.php.net/file_get_contents, www.php.net/stream_context_create &
www.php.net/curl).

I think if we stick by the criteria of whether a question is in fact
frequently asked, we'll end up with something that's genuinely useful.
We need to avoid going into lecture mode. Instead of a long winded
explanation, just provide enough info so the reader would find the
necessary info in the manual himself. Basically, we should answer the
question as though someone actually asked it here.

I disagree with providing just links. It isn't a friendly way to
answer a question--borderline rude even. We should definitely aim for
brevity though.

I agree with what you say, although I think it's proabably useful to
also include links along with the answer and example to the appropriate
manual pages.

--
Chris Hope - The Electric Toolbox - http://www.electrictoolbox.com/

[Chung Leong]

"Gary L. Burnore" <gb******@databasix.com> wrote in message
news:d0**********@valis.databasix.com...

Many of us could host such a thing but that's NOT the proper place for
it. Mixing USENet and any other medium (W3, Email, etc) is NOT a good
thing. The FAQ should be maintained by one or more regulars of the
geoup and posted TO the group on a regular basis as it is in most
other comp.* groups.

It would make it easier to reference though, if the list is mirrored on a
web site. Google News URLs are rather unweidy. With HTML, we can format it
more nicely too.

Sourceforge might be a good place for hosting it. We get a nice, respectable
looking domain name (e.g. clpfaq.sourceforge.net). There's CVS for keeping
the master file. Makes it easier for more than one person to maintain it,
which is important, since any one of us might suddenly get tired of doing it
/ die / hit it big on American Idol / get arrested for blackmailing Google.

[Geoff Berrow]

I noticed that Message-ID: <ja********************@comcast.com> from
Chung Leong contained the following:

I disagree with providing just links. It isn't a friendly way to answer a
question--borderline rude even. We should definitely aim for brevity though.

I agree. Good though the manual is, it is not aimed at newbies and can
be difficult to decipher.
--
Geoff Berrow (put thecat out to email)
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the committee's, mine.
Simple RFDs http://www.ckdog.co.uk/rfdmaker/

[John Dunlop]

R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah wrote:

What about having a single thread (say for example, "FAQ Project" or
so) in which the contributors can modifiy the previous post and add as
a new post

A reasonable suggestion, Rajesh, but it looks as if two or
three of the questions have their own threads already. The
movement appears to have slowed, however, so let's keep
pushing!

Please don't hesitate to start a new thread to answer a
frequently asked question. Also, if you have any thoughts,
any at all, on any of the questions already answered, please
make them known. That goes for everyone. I, for one, would
prefer you emend my articles than keep quiet out of courtesy
if you spot a mistake. Be your remarks short or long,
critical or incidental, post them. I normally find pedantry
a source of amusement, but for now the enjoyment comes
second to necessity.

--
Jock

[R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah]

John Dunlop wrote:

What about having a single thread (say for example, "FAQ Project" or so) in which the contributors can modifiy the previous post and add as a new post

A reasonable suggestion, Rajesh, but it looks as if two or
three of the questions have their own threads already. The
movement appears to have slowed, however, so let's keep
pushing!

<snip>

I'll definitely contribute some. But, right now, I'm quite busy with
couple of projects. I'll try to push the questions on session, cookies,
templates, etc by this weekend.

--
<?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/