So this is a quick warning to all you Doctrine users. Unless you want to actually override the isValid method for saving, call your check method function something else!

With various things going wrong, I was please that I had got the file upload code done for a site i’m working on. All I needed to do was make sure that the file had the right permissions and then edit it via GD (via an image editor class i have). Here’s where the trouble started..

I started off by chmoding the file to 777 and then trying to do the resize.. this threw an error with permissions.. so i looked at the file.. Read Only.. strange I thought.

Then I checked the folder and that had a weird green square instead of the checkmark in the checkbox. I tried to remove the read only attribute off of this and hte file.. and it kept coming back.. I went all around hte houses, trying all sorts of techniques .. to no avail.

@auroraeosrose in the PHPWomen IRC channel helped a lot as did Dreis.. (thanks muchly)..

After backing up the files and formatting the drive, to reinstalling the Apache/PHP/MySql stack I was no clearer to the answer as to why the file was always ending up with read only permissions..

Finally it came down to the 1 thing that I had overlooked.. the chmod in the code .. the second parameter was 777. I thought this was correct. Aparrantly not. The second parameter of the chmod function requires an octal code.. thus prefixing the 777 with a 0 (zero) fixed the whole issue.

Boy did i really feel dumb today.

So to wrap up, remember to always pass a FOUR digit code through to chmod or face the annoyance and headache I got today.

$data = file_get_contents("php://input");
$lines = explode("&",$data);
foreach($lines as $line) {
    list($key,$value) = explode("=",$line,2);
    $_REQUEST[$key] = $value;
}

basically this grabs the data from the php://input and then splits it up into it’s component parts and then stores that within the $_REQUEST superglobal array.
Why $_REQUEST well we’re calling a head request and not a post or get request, so where else should it go.

The php://input is handy when doing stuff like xmlRPC or jsonRPC etc ..

Hopefully this will benefit someone out there

<edit>
Thanks to Mortal of #php on OFTC (irc) for pointing out the unlimited explode

function smarty_block_assign_content($params, $content, &$smarty)
{
        $smarty = clone($smarty); //Copy the original class, so there's no garbage variables after we finish
        if(!isset($content))
                return;
        if (!isset($params['var'])) {
                $smarty->trigger_error("assign_content: missing 'var' parameter", E_USER_WARNING);
                return;
        }

        //Compile content to ensure all smarty tags get processed
        $smarty->assign($params['var'], $content);
                $smarty->assign($k, $v);
        return ;
}

example of usage:

{assign_content var='menu'}
  {foreach from=$menus.cats->children item='cat'}
  <div class="item{if $cat->active || $cat->expanded}_select{/if}">
    <div class="arrow"></div>
    {if !$cat->active}<a href="{$cat->link}">{/if}{$cat->text}{if !$cat->active}</a>
    {/if}
  </div>
  {if $cat->children|@count ne 0 || $cat->expanded}
    {foreach from=$cat->children item='subCat'}
      <div class="subitem{if $subCat->active}_select{/if}">
        <div class="arrow"></div>
      {if !$subCat->active}<a href="{$subCat->link}">{/if}{$subCat->text}{if !$subCat->active}</a>{/if}
      </div>
    {/foreach}
  {/if}
  {/foreach}
{/assign_content}

This will set the code we used to generate the menu and assign it to $menu for later use.
Hope you find as usefull

The basis really is simple, we have a menu item which really is just link and text. That menu item could have children, could be active and/or be selected.

In this case Selected is the currently menu item, which is also Active, and all it’s parents in the chain upwards are also active.

We also have a menu controller which makes it easier to add to the menus.

class menuHandler {
    public $menus=array();
    public function NewMenu() {
        $k = time();
        $this->menus[$k] = new menu_class();
        return $k;
    }
    public function AddMenu($key,menu_class $menu) {
        if (!isset($this->menus[$key])) {
            $this->menus[$key] = $menu;
        }
        return $this;
    }
    public function ItemCount($menuKey) {
        $menu = $this->menus[$menuKey];
        if (!($menu instanceof menu_class)) {
            return -1;
        }
        else {
            return count($menu->children);
        }
    }
    public function AddItem($menuKey,$itemKey=null,menu_class $item) {
        if (isset($this->menus[$menuKey])) {
            $menu = $this->menus[$menuKey];
            if (!isset($itemKey) or (is_numeric($itemKey) &amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;amp; $itemKey <0)) {
                $itemKey = count($menu->children);
            }
            $menu->AddSubItem($item,$itemKey,$menuKey);
        }
        return $this;
    }
    public function SetActive($id,$from=null) {
        $menu = new menu_class();
        if ($from == null) {
            $from = $this->menus;
        }
        elseif($from instanceof menu_class) {
            $from = $from->children;
        }
        foreach ($from as $key=>&amp;amp;amp;$menu) {
            if ($key==$id) {
                $menu->active=true;
                return true;
            }
            elseif(count($menu->children) !=0) {
                $r = $this->SetActive($id,$menu->children);
                if ($r) {
                    $menu->expanded = true;
                    return $r;
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
class menu_class {
    public $children = array();
    public $myParent=null;
    public $active = false;
    public $expanded = false;
    public $link ='';
    public $text = '';
    public $additional = array();

    public function AddSubItem($item,$ID=null,$parentID=null) {
        if ($item instanceof menu_class) {
        }
        elseif(is_array($item)) {
            $item = new menu_class();
            $item->text = $details[0];
            $item->link = $details[1];
        }
        if (isset($ID)) {
            if (isset($this->children[$ID])) {
                if (is_numeric($ID)) {
                    $this->children = array_insert($this->children,$item,$ID);
                }
            }
            else {
                $this->children[$ID] = $item;
            }
        }
        else {
            $this->children[] = $item;
        }
        if (!isset($parentID)) {
            $parentID = "main";
        }
        $this->myParent = $parentID;
        ksort($this->children);
    }

    public function __construct($text=null,$link=null) {
        if(isset($text) &amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;amp; !is_null($text)) {
            $this->text = $text;
        }
        if(isset($link) &amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;amp; !is_null($link)) {
            $this->link = $link;
        }
    } 

    public function Format($text) {
        if (!empty($this->link)) {
            $text= str_replace("%href%",$this->link);
        }
        if (!empty($this->text)) {
            $text = str_replace("%text%",$this->text);
        }
        return $text;
    }
}

You will notice that i’ve used the array_insert function from my previous posting. This was why it was created, so that i could insert without worry that i would overwrite the code

here’s an example of using the code

$menus = new menuHandler();
$menus->AddMenu("main",new menu_class());
 $menus->AddItem("main",-1,new menu_class("TEXT","link.php"));
 $menus->AddItem("main",-1,new menu_class("TEXT2","link2.php"));
//we want this item to be 1st!
 $menus->AddItem("main",0,new menu_class("1st Link","homelink.php"));

So far I pass the $menus out to smarty in the usual assignment method and process like as follows

 {foreach from=$menus.main->children item="mItem"}
  <div class="mainbutton"><a href="{$mItem->link}">{$mItem->text}</a></div>
 {/foreach}

For a cascaded menu i’ve used the following

{foreach from=$menus.cats->children item='cat'}
  <div class="item{if $cat->active || $cat->expanded}_select{/if}">
    <div class="arrow"></div>
    {if !$cat->active}<a href="{$cat->link}">{/if}{$cat->text}{if !$cat->active}</a>
    {/if}
  </div>
  {if $cat->children|@count ne 0 || $cat->expanded}
    {foreach from=$cat->children item='subCat'}
      <div class="subitem{if $subCat->active}_select{/if}">
        <div class="arrow"></div>
      {if !$subCat->active}<a href="{$subCat->link}">{/if}{$subCat->text}{if !$subCat->active}</a>{/if}
      </div>
    {/foreach}
  {/if}
  {/foreach}

As usual any comments gratefully recieved

$array[position] = "newdata";

But unfortunately this is not so good if you only wanted to insert the newdata into that position and move the others the out of the way. So with a little help from Derick Rethans and Tetraboy I came up with this little solution.

Any comments gratefully recieved.

function array_insert(&$array,$element,$position=null) {
  if (count($array) == 0) {
    $array[] = $element;
  }
  elseif (is_numeric($position) && $position < 0) {
    if((count($array)+position) < 0) {
      $array = array_insert($array,$element,0);
    }
    else {
      $array[count($array)+$position] = $element;
    }
  }
  elseif (is_numeric($position) && isset($array[$position])) {
    $part1 = array_slice($array,0,$position,true);
    $part2 = array_slice($array,$position,null,true);
    $array = array_merge($part1,array($position=>$element),$part2);
    foreach($array as $key=>$item) {
      if (is_null($item)) {
        unset($array[$key]);
      }
    }
  }
  elseif (is_null($position)) {
    $array[] = $element;
  }
  elseif (!isset($array[$position])) {
    $array[$position] = $element;
  }
  $array = array_merge($array);
  return $array;
}

and no code would be without it’s example:

// create the array
$x = array("apples","bananas","pears");
//insert "oranges" at position 1
array_insert($x,"oranges",1);
var_dump($x);
//insert "pineapples" 2 from the end
array_insert($x,"pineapples",-2);
var_dump($x);
//insert "strawberries" at the end
array_insert($x,"strawberries");
var_dump($x);
//insert "plums" at position 0 - (because the negative position goes beyond 0)
array_insert($x,"pineapples",-10);
var_dump($x);

or alternatively

// create the array
$x = array("apples","bananas","pears");
//insert "oranges" at position 1
$x = array_insert($x,"oranges",1);
var_dump($x);
//insert "pineapples" 2 from the end
$x = array_insert($x,"pineapples",-2);
var_dump($x);
//insert "strawberries" at the end
$x = array_insert($x,"strawberries");
var_dump($x);
//insert "plums" at position 0 - (because the negative position goes beyond 0)
$x = array_insert($x,"plums",-10);
var_dump($x);