Tag Archives: PHP

Upgrading XAMPP

Upgrading XAMPP from ver 5.5.19 to 5.63 was easier than I could have imagined. I wanted to take advantage of the new PHP 5.6 ‘argument unpacking‘ feature using the splat operator. I was afraid that the process of transferring test websites, including a full WordPress installation, and command line scripts would be painful. It was not. Here are the steps I took.

  1. Renamed the old xampp folder from \xampp to \xampp Old
  2. Unpacked the new xampp package to \xampp
  3. In the new installation, renamed the following files and folders by appending “Old” to their names:
    1. /apache/conf/httpd.conf, apache configuration file where the virtual host settings reside;
    2. /mysql/data/, the entire mysql data folder
    3. /php/php.ini, the php initialization file where there have been many customizations over time.
  4. Copied the files and folders in step 3 to the corresponding location in the new installation.
  5. Copied the website folders I wanted to transfer from /htdocs/

Fired up the new installation, and everything worked perfectly! Even the WordPress site picked up right where it left off on the old installation without a hiccup.

Send Calendar Invitations with PHP

The first problem is sending mail from PHP from a smpt server that requires authentication. The standard php.ini file does not allow that. Fortunately, there is fake sendmail for windows which is included in the xampp installation. This requires modification of both the php.ini [mail function] section as well as the sendmail.ini file where the server authentication information is stored. With these modifications, the php mail function will work!

The primary problem is how to configure an e-mail attachment with a proper calendar invitation. This was kindly explained at Exchange Core. This seems to work not only with messages sent to an Exchange server, but also when sent to standard imap servers when viewed with a client that understands what to do with .ics attachments, such as the iPad. Awesome!

See also, iCalendar on Wikipedia and the iCalendar specification at the Internet Engineering Task Force.

New PHP Project & Name Parsing

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Thinking about developing a mysql database for help with case management in my firm. Learned alot by using XAMPP and the excellent PHP Development Series video tutorials at Lecture Snippets.

Jonathon Hill‘s PHP Human Name Parsing, improving Keith Beckman’s script.

Jason Priem’s page about parsing human names in PHP.

Here is the same type thing in javascript by Josh Frasier.

Another javascript name parser by Jerry Davidson.

Chris West’s blog post about javascript name parsing.