CrankBerry Blog » PHP

Random row from your MySQL table with PHP, alternative to ORDER BY rand()

Jerry Low — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 21:28:04 +0000

Working with MySQL and PHP is awesome. Its one of the best way to manage your data, but once in a while you may want to do some randomizing. One problem I came across recently was how to select a random row from your MySQL table with PHP. Using the ORDER BY rand() method in your query maybe a bit slow so here's what we've got.

The Premade Method

As I mentioned in the beginning. MySQL actually has a premade method that allows you to select a random row by querying for it.

mysql_query("SELECT * FROM table ORDER BY rand() LIMIT 0,1");

This method is great but if you are randomizing from a large table this method is not very efficient and with a high volume of queries it really puts a strain on your DB.

The New Method – Randomizing 1 Entry

Now here's the new solution by selecting a random row with the offset. This method will query exactly to the random entry; thus, making this process much faster.

$query = "SELECT * FROM table"
$num_rows = mysql_num_rows( mysql_query( $query ) );

//Random Number
$rand_row = rand(0, $num_rows – 1);

//Selecting the Random Row
$rand_row = $query .= " LIMIT $rand_row, 1";

Now you can modify the $query line to include your filters and sorting stuff, whatever you need.

The New Method – Randomizing More than 1 Entry

The above method right now can only select a single row. What if you want to randomized more than one item. Here's a method to select multiple items without overlap.

//Set the Amount of Random Rows you want
$rand_amount = 5;

$query = "SELECT * FROM table"
$num_rows = mysql_num_rows( mysql_query( $query ) );

//Make sure you have more than the amount of random count you want
if ($num_rows <= $rand_amount) {

//An Array of Numbers Choosen
$rand_array = array();

//Do IT!!
for ($i = 1; $i >= $rand_amount; $i++ ) {
do {
$rand_added = FALSE;
$rand_num = rand(0, $num_rows – 1);

//Should We Add to Array
if (!in_array($rand_num, $rand_array)) {

$rand_array[] = $rand_num;
$rand_added = TRUE;
}

} while (!$rand_added);
}

//You now have a set of random row numbers to choose from
//Display The Result of What you have
foreach ($rand_array as $rand_num) {
$new_query = $query . " LIMIT $rand_num, 1";

//Displaying What you have
$current_row = mysql_fetch_array( mysql_query( $new_query ) );
}
}

To be honest you can use the multiple randomizer and just set the random amount to 1 but the other method saves you like 20 lines of code. Imagine how much faster that could be!

Automated MySQL database backup with PHP and cronjob

Jerry Low — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:04:36 +0000

At some point of working on your website you'll want to back up you MySQL database. This is they key for all of you building dynamic sites. If one day your server goes down or something you may have the files backed up but without the database you'll have to start from scratch again. If you operate a very slow-paced site then manual back up is fine but if you want to backup your database daily then it becomes tedious. I, myself is lazy so I came up with a PHP and Cronjob solution to automatically backup MySQL database.

Automating It

What you need? The first thing you need to know how to do it set cronjobs. If you don't know how to do that you can learn how to set cronjobs here. The cronjob is what will automate your server to run the script and how often to run it.

The Files

All you'll need is two files to make this work. The first file, mysqldump.php can be grabbed from CreativeFactory.it. The next thing you need is my backup.php file. Just create a file called backup.php and dump the following script inside.

//The File Name You Want To Use
$fileName = 'Filename';

//Global
$sqlhost = 'localhost';
$sqluser = 'db_user';
$sqlpass = 'db_password';
$sqldb = 'db_name';

//**********************************
//You Don't Need to Edit This
//**********************************

//Today's Timestamp
$today_ts = strtotime("now");

$backupDate = date('y.m.d.h.i', $today_ts);
$backupFile = $backupDate.'- '.$fileName.'.txt';

//Connect to mysql server
$connessione = @mysql_connect($sqlhost,$sqluser,$sqlpass);

//Include class
require_once('mysqldump.php');

//Create new instance of MySQLDump
$dumper = new MySQLDump($sqldb);

//If you want to write the MySQL dump to file
$dumper->writeDump($backupFile);

The Setup

Configure the first file variables of the script and then just leave the rest. Put the backup.php and mysqldump.php in the same folder where you want the back up files to be dumped. Set the cronjob to run backup.php you don't need to worry about mysqldump.php. That's it, it'll automatically backup.

Possible Problems

The problems that you may experience is the MySQL privileges. If your account doesn't have enough privilege then you may not be able to properly query the database. Another problem maybe the CHMOD of the folder you're backing up to. You need to have write access into that folder.

Recovering from Backup

To recover you database just log into your phpMyAdmin, open the database you want to recover. Select the import tab and just browse for the file. If I recall the file itself should overwrite tables that are already in place if not then you may have to drop all the tables first.

Awesome image cropper/thumbnail maker script – Modified Marquee Tool

Jerry Low — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:59:31 +0000

As I'm recoding my portfolio right now, I thought to myself – how great would it be to have a thumbnail maker tool. Some PHP or Javascript solution to crop images dynamically without the use of Photoshop. I would hate to fire up Photoshop every time I want to upload something. I'm sure you've all been there before. Anyways I landed upon a script that suited my need exactly. The Rectangle Marquee Tool. The tool looks great but was a bit confusing for me to get working and based on the comment for a few others too. Now I've also done some slight PHP modification to get the script working to my needs and generating the correct thumbnails.

See what I'm mumbling on about right here:
Demonstration of Marquee Tool

Once again I'd like to clarify that I did not make the Rectangular Marquee Tool, it was written by Sergey Koksharov using certain functions of the Prototype/Scriptaculous framework. I'm merely just doing some tweaks to make it work better in my circumstance. So all credits goes to Sergey and the Scriptaculous team.

My modification will allow you to do certain things such as:

Define a input image dynamically
Define the output image dynamically
Generate a final output image

I believe the PHP included in the original script was a bit dated so it wasn't working on my machine and servers that's why I made my own version.

So to start off you need to download the required files from: here. Then you need to extract the files into a scripts folder or whichever you prefer just remember to rename the source path after. The real files you need are:

marker.css
prototype_reduced.js
rectmarquee.js

Once you've got the files extract them to the proper folders and create fresh PHP file to work with. This is the file your script will run from. I'll break down my code into chunks for you to understand, but I'll go in order so if you copy each chunk and paste them in the same order it should work. That is if you're reading this instruction right ;)

Before the HTML

So this piece of code starts off your whole document even before the HTML code. There's only two codes you need to modify which is the $img_src (original file) and $img_dst (final thumbnail file).

//Source Image to Crop From
$img_src = 'img/';

//Thumbnail Location
$img_dst = 'img/';

//If you want to feed this dynamically you can use
//$_GET tags or draw them in through a database

//Some coding here not just for looks.
if ($img_src!=") {
//Check if Image
//Image Dimension
if (!getimagesize($img_src)) {
//Not A Valid Image
$img_error = 1;
} else {
//Getting Image Dimension
$img_dim = getimagesize($img_src);
}

//Verfiy This Is An Image
$img_verify = @imagecreatefromjpeg($img_src);

if (!$img_verify) {
$img_error = 1;
} else {
//Getting Dimensions
$img_w = imagesx($img_verify);
$img_h = imagesy($img_verify);
}

if ($img_error == 1) {
echo 'Not a valid image';
exit;
}
}

The HTML and HEAD Tags

This is the code to begin your HTML tag and your chunk of HEAD tag. Note that if you didn't place your files in the same location you have to change the source path.

"stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/marker.css" />

Your BODY and Closing HTML Tag

So all that's left is the BODY tag. There's really no modification you need to do here except for the (don't paste this in your code in order):

coords: {x1: 0, y1: 0, width: 100, height: 50}

This line defines where the crop box starts and how big it should be. You can play around with it if you want. Anyways here's the coding (do paste this in).

"width: ; height: ; position: relative;">
"" alt="" id="sampleid" />

"preview" style="position: absolute; right: 10px; bottom: 10px; border: 2px solid #FFF;">

Now we're just about complete here. All this tool does right now is let you select an area to crop. To actually make the thumbnail you need the assistant of PHP (you can do it in JS but I prefer PHP). You need to have the GD library enabled in order for this to work.

At this point you need to create your last file which is named crop.php. All you need in crop.php is this:

//Variables
$img_w = $_GET['w'];
$img_h = $_GET['h'];
$img_x = $_GET['x'];
$img_y = $_GET['y'];
$img_src = $_GET['img'];
$img_dst = $_GET['img_dst'];

//There's a Set Thumb
if ($img_w>0 && $img_h>0) {

//Create New Image
$new_img = imagecreatetruecolor($img_w, $img_h);

//Loading The Original Image
$old_img = imagecreatefromjpeg($img_src);

//Copying Image
imagecopy($new_img, $old_img, 0, 0, $img_x, $img_y, $img_w, $img_h);

header("Content-Type: image/jpeg");

@imagejpeg($new_img, $img_dst);
imagejpeg($new_img);

//Destroy the Old Images
imagedestroy($old_img);
imagedestroy($new_img);
}

That's it, and everything should work like planed. I've tested this script out a few times but if anything doesn't work just let me know.

PHP password strength detector script

Jerry Low — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:23:34 +0000

If you operate a user registration script on your website you may want to ensure users are protected. There are certain aspects of this you cannot control such as the user's self selected password. Here I have a script that will detect the user's password strength and base on that you could reject the password or just make notice to the user their password's strength.

Basically we're checking against a few things here and we give a rating to each criteria and then add up the final score to see where they rank. Here is what we'll be checking against:

Length – 10 Points
Lower Case Characters – 20 Points
Upper Case Characters – 20 Points
Numbers – 20 Points
Special Characters – 30 Points

The points are given based on how much value they may add to the password. Enough talking I present you the function:

function password_strength($password, $display = TRUE) {
//Strength Scoring
$pass_score = 0;

$pass_len = FALSE;
$pass_lc = FALSE;
$pass_uc = FALSE;
$pass_num = FALSE;
$pass_weird = FALSE;

//Pad
$password = 0 . $password;

//Check Length
if (strlen($password)>6) $pass_len = TRUE;

//Check Lowercase Characters
for ($i = 97; $i <=122; $i++) {
if (@strpos($password, chr($i))) $pass_lc = TRUE;
}

//Check Uppercase Characters
for ($i = 65; $i <=90; $i++) {
if (@strpos($password, chr($i))) $pass_uc = TRUE;
}

//Check Numbers
for ($i = 48; $i <=57; $i++) {
if (@strpos($password, chr($i))) $pass_num = TRUE;
}

//Check Weird Characters
for ($i = 33; $i <=126; $i++) {
//Excempt
if (($i>47 && $i<58) || ($i>64 && $i<91) || ($i>96 && $i<123)) {
//Null
} else {
if (@strpos($password, chr($i))) $pass_weird = TRUE;
}
}

//Points
if ($pass_len) $pass_score = $pass_score + 10;
if ($pass_lc) $pass_score = $pass_score + 20;
if ($pass_uc) $pass_score = $pass_score + 20;
if ($pass_num) $pass_score = $pass_score + 20;
if ($pass_weird) $pass_score = $pass_score + 30;

//Displaying
if ($display) {
echo '

';

if ($pass_score <= 40) echo '

WEAK

';
if ($pass_score > 40 && $pass_score < 70) echo '

AVERAGE

';
if ($pass_score >= 71) echo '

STRONG

';

echo '

';
}

return $pass_score;
}

The script itself has a built in display bar which will visuallize how strong or weak the password maybe which could turn off. Here's an example of calling the script:

$password = "GoodBoy";

//Showing the Password Strength with Visual Bar
password_strength($password);

//Not Showing anything at all but storing strength as a variable
$strength = password_strength($password, FALSE);

Secure PHP login without database

Jerry Low — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:55:09 +0000

Although not recommended but maybe for some reason you need to create a PHP login without the use of any database (SQL). For some reason you maybe scared to approach, but here I made a script that is fairly secure without utilizing any database at all. It allows users to login and stay logged in. If you are one of those people then here's the script for you.

Now this script does not use any external files to store user names and password as it opens up more security flaws for hackers, so everything is managed in an array within the PHP. If somebody was able to get a hold of your PHP file this will compromise things but the chances of that happening is fairly close to utilizing a database.

Features

Utilizes cookies to give users ability to stay logged in across multiple pages
Secure login algorithm mitigates hacking attempts

Drawbacks

Now by not utilizing a database there are some drawbacks and they are:

Users cannot change password and user names manually
Users can attempt login as many times as they want

With that said, it means that usernames and passwords must be managed by an admin. If this is still something for you. If this is not for you wait around because I will convert this script into a database version in the future.

Less Talk More Script

Installation:

Just download all the necessary files which includes:

_login.php
_login_page.php
_login_class.php
_login_users.php
login.php
logout.php

Once you put these in your root folder you need to edit the users and settings. Open up _login_users.php and you'll see:

//My Login Script
//Attach this to any page that requires Login

//Users and Settings
$domain_code = 'website'; //Alpha Numeric and no space
$random_num_1 = 20; //Pick a random number between 1 to 500
$random_num_2 = 565; //Pick a random number between 500 to 1000
$random_num_3 = 3; //Pick a random number between 1 to 3

//Usernames can contain alphabets, numbers, hyphens and underscore only
//Set users below – Just add " => " with the first " being
//the username and the second " after the => being the password.
//Its an array so add an , after every password except for the
//last one in the list. As shown below
//Eg. $users = array(
// 'user1' => 'password',
// 'user2' => 'password'
// );

$users = array(
'user1' => 'password',
'user2' => 'password'
);

Modify the domain code and three random numbers. The three random numbers is the key that makes login secure and unique to your website only. Then at the bottom you can create all of your users.

Now in every page that you require the user to login just add the following code to the very top of the page, exactly on line 1.

require('_login.php'); ?>

That's pretty much all you need to do to install the secure login script. The only other thing if you want is you can edit _login_page.php. That's the page people see when they need to login.

Login and Logout

You can lead users to login and logout with links to login.php and logout.php as such.

Displaying Macors

In this case the only macro you can call up is the username after they have logged in. You can call it in a welcome back message like this (placed in your HTML).

Welcome back echo $login->username; ?>

Download the files:
PHP Login Without Database.zip

In page popup with faded background – in PHP

Jerry Low — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:12:52 +0000

Sometimes you may be required to have popup windows on your website. They're obtrusive and hard to style with your site, in summary – nasty. What I've seen is other websites fade out their background and have an in page popup. I came up with a script that does the same thing in PHP.

Now the code involves multiple parts so bare with me here. Either way your end product will look like the image below.

Lets start with the CSS here. Just copy and paste this into your CSS file or HTML.

There's really no need to edit anything unless you want to change the font and stuff, the colors will be modified later. The next part you have to add this code right after your tag.

//In Page Popup Box with Faded Background by Jerry Low @crankberryblog.com
//Find other useful scripts at the Crankberry Blog

//SETTINGS
$fade_amount = 60; //In Percentage
$box_width = 400;
$box_background = 'FFFFFF'; //Hex Color
$box_border_width = 1;
$box_border_color = '999999'; //Hex Color
$close_box = 1; //Do You Want The Close Bar on Top 1 = Yes, 0 = No
$extension = ""; // Other Variables that maybe needed, page number etc.

//Begin Popup Box
$left_margin = 0 – ($box_width/2);
$page_url = basename($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']);
if ($extension!="") $page_url .= '?' . $extension;

if (isset($_GET['popup'])) {
echo '

\''.$page_url.'\');" style="opacity: 0.'.$fade_amount.'; -moz-opacity: 0.'.$fade_amount.';filter: alpha(opacity: '.$fade_amount.');">

}

Looking at the top part of what you just added, the setting are at the top. Just configure it to what ever you like.

The Content

The content of your popup box goes in between the HTML comment tag in the code above. Exactly where I wrote: Popup content goes in here!

Popup content goes in here!

Next you need the trigger to activate the popup. Something like this:

"?popup=1">Activated Box

To finish off the code you will need to add a

tag just before the closing tag. Like so:

That's it and all you need to have your own in page with faded background popup window. Wasn't that just simple?

Advance Configuration

Now if your pages require other variables to be passed through the URL I noticed that the popup will intrude on that. So I have an extension variable where you can attach other variables to and they will be kept. The variable is in the setting part of the code. Example of attaching some variables.

$extension = ""; // Other Variables that maybe needed, page number etc.
$extension = 'p=3&sort=2&id=214423';

PHP Simple Email Validation

Jerry Low — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:47:37 +0000

When having having forms on your website one of the most common form fields is usually the user's email. To ensure you're receiving quality information and not receiving bogus spams you should validate the email to be of a real one or close enough to. Here's a quick free email validation script for those PHP lovers.

Now this script does not verify domains, as there's no way to verify all domains in this world for a valid email address. What this function does is verify a few things:

No spacing in the entry
There are characters before the @ sign
There are characters after the @ sign
There is a period after the @ sign
After the last period there is some characters

And that is really how emails are composed of. For example:

some_characters@character.com
some_characters@character.co.jp

Well I won't bore you with the composition and dynamics of emails, here's the function you can add into your form processing script to verify email entries. Now, I mentioned this is a basic script because it does not validate special characters that aren't allowed in email names, maybe next time.

The Script Already

function verify_email($email) {
//Trim
$email = trim($email);

//Var
$email_error = TRUE;

//Check Spacing
if (@strpos($email, ' ')) {
$email_error = FALSE;
}

//Validate Email
$first_at = strpos($email, '@');
if ($first_at<1) {
$email_error = FALSE;
} else {
//Make the Last Part of the Email
$email_end = substr($email, $first_at+1);

//No More @ Symbol
$more_at = strpos($email_end, '@');
if ($more_at>=1) {
$email_error = FALSE;
} else {
//Check Next Char isn't a period
$first_period = strpos($email_end, '.');

if ($first_period<1) {
$email_error = FALSE;
} else {
//Last Part of the Email
$email_last = substr($email_end, $first_period+1);

//Another Character
$email_len = strlen($email_last);

if ($email_len<1) $email_error = FALSE;

}
}
}

return $email_error;
}

If you aren't sure how to use this script. Create a test.php page and copy the following script into it and try it out.

//Calling The Function
if (isset($_POST['test'])) {
$email = $_POST['email'];

//Is It Valid?
if (verify_email($email)) echo 'Email is Valid
';
else echo 'INVALID EMAIL
';

echo '
';
}

There you have, a simple email validation script. Leave some comments and feedback if you think there are ways to enhance this script.

PHP Image Verification aka Captcha (Basic)

Jerry Low — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:43:55 +0000

You're making your website and you have forms. Here you are thinking, what if spam bots found my form? What if somebody submitted to my form from their own script? What should I do? Well, there's many things you can do to mitigate your worries but one of the simpler things you could do is having an image verification field in your form. Here's a basic script to generate a random code in image that bots can't read.

This is a simple version of image verification which requires a single script, I'll be uploading one in the future which is more advanced and more customizable.

So lets start, you don't have to modify any of your coding as of so far, all you need to do is add some coding in to enforce the verification. Now open up your favourite text/PHP and create a file called _verify.php. Have you done that yet? Good! Now in the script just copy this code inside (will be attaching as a zip file as well if there's any problems).

session_start();

//Your Capcha Settings
$use_numbers = TRUE;
$use_upperCase = TRUE;
$use_lowerCase = FALSE;

$code = simple_code(5, $use_numbers , $use_upperCase, $use_lowerCase);

$_SESSION["verify_code"] = md5($code);
$im_height = 25;
$im_width = 150;

$im = imagecreate($im_width, $im_height);
$black = imagecolorallocate($im, 0, 0, 0);
$white = imagecolorallocate($im, 255, 255, 255);
$font_size = 14;

imagestring($im, $font_size, 50, 5, $code, $white);
imagejpeg($im, null, 80);

//This is the simple code Generator
function simple_code($code_len = 1, $have_num = TRUE, $have_caps = TRUE, $have_lower = TRUE) {
if (!$have_num && !$have_caps && !$have_lower) {
return 'Please Have at Least One Setting On';
} else {
//Starting The Code
$code = ";

for ($i=1; $i<=$code_len; $i++) {
//Keep Generating Characters Until its a proper character
do {
//Is The Code Good
$code_ok = TRUE;

//Generate the Characters
$code_char = rand(48, 122);

//Which Codes do they want
if (!$have_num && ($code_char>=48 && $code_char<=57)) $code_ok = FALSE;
if (!$have_caps && ($code_char>=65 && $code_char<=90)) $code_ok = FALSE;
if (!$have_lower && ($code_char>=97 && $code_char<=122)) $code_ok = FALSE;

//Bad Chars
if (($code_char >= 58 && $code_char<=64) || ($code_char >= 91 && $code_char<=96)) $code_ok = FALSE;
} while (!$code_ok);

//Add Character to Code
$code .= chr($code_char);

}

return $code;
}
}
?>

The code is very simple. All you have to do is configure the three settings at the beginning of the code. Currently its set to have numbers and capital letters only, but change it to whatever suits your flavor. I've kept the default length to 5 because if image verification is too long users may not like it. If the code is too short it maybe too easy for bots; thus, five is an acceptable length. The code above integrates a random code generator which I have demonstrated before.

So save the file and lets continue. In your form page add the following code:

Image Verification

Match This

Format it to however suits your website. Now the above code adds the verification field in your form but does not validate the input yet. That's right, we have to validate the input. To validate with the following before you process your form.

$validatePass = (md5($_POST['verification'])==$_SESSION["verify_code"]) ? 1 : 0;

Now the above code only validates the input, but does not stop the form from processing. The variable $validatePass will be 1 if the verification is correct and 0 if it is not. You'll have to have your code laid out in something like this:

//If Submitting
if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
$validatePass = (md5($_POST['verification'])==$_SESSION["verify_code"]) ? 1 : 0;

if ($validatePass) {
//Run my Form
} else {
echo 'Image verification did not match';
}
}

And that is all you need to make your forms bot and spam proof. Do note that this is not a catch all solution, there are other things you need to put in place to secure your environment for your users.

Problems You May Have

If you are having trouble with loading the image or having the verification working, look at the following checklist. This might help you.

Have you enabled GD/GD1 extension on your server/php?
Do you have cookies disabled, cookies is required?
Did you include session_start() on top of your php file which has the form?

Setting PHP cron job with crontab

Jerry Low — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 08:26:05 +0000

So you've created a PHP script that does something like clean your tables or compiles a report on some data. You want it to run it every 2 hours but you don't want to go to your computer every 2 hours. What should you do? Cron job using crontab is what you should do. Cron job is basically setting a timer on your server to run the script at a certain time that you please. Sounds easy enough, but how do you do it? Lets find out!

The first thing you need to do is obviously create the PHP script. Before setting up the cron job test and see if the script produces the result you want. You don't want to schedule something and find out a year later that it wasn't doing anything.

Assuming you have that part laid out now you can move forward. Now to schedule a cron job just login to your server's admin control panel area and find the cron job/crontab setting. Here's where I found it in Plesk and Cpanel:

Plesk: Domains > *domain_name* > Scheduled Tasks > *domain_user*
Control Panel: Advanced Tools > Cron Jobs > Advanced

Try to play around if you couldn't find it as different versions and CPs name things differently. You'll know when you find it as it asks you for minute, hour, day, month, year and weekday.

The Cron Job Command

Let's talk about the command first. The command is the code to tell the server which code to run. There's four commands to choose from and you'll have to try them out to see which one works for you. Here are the commands.

lynx > /dev/null -dump SCRIPT URL
wget -q -O /dev/null SCRIPT URL
fetch -o /dev/null SCRIPT URL
curl -s -o /dev/null SCRIPT URL

So for example if I want to run a backup code for this blog I would plug the following for the command.

lynx > /dev/null -dump "http://www.crankberryblog.com/backup.php"

The Time Setting

Now that you have the command down its time to tell the server when to run the PHP script automatically. So here are the options you can set:

Minute: 0 – 59
Hour: 0 – 23
Day: 1 – 31
Month: 1 – 12
Day of the Week: 0 – 7 (0 and 7 both represent Sunday)

Now these settings don't seem too flexible at all, but wait! there's more! There are some additional settings that can be used.

0    - Run at zero
*    - Run every x (x being the setting, * in days means run every day)
0,15,30,45 – Run every 0, 15, 30 and 45 of x
*/15 - Run every interval of 15 for x
10-15    - Run it every value between 10 and 15

I'm not sure if those settings are confusing or not. Here are some examples for you to better understand how the timing commands work.

*/10 *    *    *    * - Run every 10 minutes
0    0    */1    *    * - Run every day
30 7    *    *    2,4,6 - Run every Tues, Thurs and Sat at 7:30
0    10 */2    *    * - Run every second day at 10:00
0    0    1    */1    * - Run on the first of every month

There you have it. Setting up your PHP script to run automatically even when you're not there.

Random code and password generator in PHP

Jerry Low — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:53:19 +0000

Sometimes when you're interacting with users you need to generate a random string of code or password. For example, a user is signing up for a service and you decided to give them some random password to start with, that's what I'm talking about. Here I have a quick script which allows you to generate random code with a defined length.

Random Code and Password Generator

Here it is, a function you can use to plug right into your script:

//Random Code and Password Generator by Jerry Low @crankberryblog.com
//Find other useful scripts at the Crankberry Blog

//This is the simple code Generator
function simple_code($code_len = 1) {
//Starting The Code
$code = "";

for ($i=1; $i<=$code_len; $i++) {
//Keep Generating Characters Until its a proper character
do {
//Generate the Characters
$code_char = rand(48, 122);
} while (($code_char >= 58 && $code_char<=64) || ($code_char >= 91 && $code_char<=96));

//Add Character to Code
$code .= chr($code_char);

}

return $code;
}

Just call the function from one of either ways. They're both calling a code of 5 characters right now but that's the number you can adjust yourself.

$code = simple_code(5);
$code = $object->simple_code(5);

Random Code and Password Generator with Configuration

So the above script allows you to generate codes with random characters including numbers, capital letters and lower case letters. It may not be for everyone so here we'll add some adjustments where you can tweak it. Here's the code:

//Random Code and Password Generator by Jerry Low @crankberryblog.com
//Find other useful scripts at the Crankberry Blog

//This is the simple code Generator
function simple_code($code_len = 1, $have_num = TRUE, $have_caps = TRUE, $have_lower = TRUE) {
if (!$have_num && !$have_caps && !$have_lower) {
return 'Please Have at Least One Setting On';
} else {
//Starting The Code
$code = "";

for ($i=1; $i<=$code_len; $i++) {
//Keep Generating Characters Until its a proper character
do {
//Is The Code Good
$code_ok = TRUE;

//Generate the Characters
$code_char = rand(48, 122);

//Which Codes do they want
if (!$have_num && ($code_char>=48 && $code_char<=57)) $code_ok = FALSE;
if (!$have_caps && ($code_char>=65 && $code_char<=90)) $code_ok = FALSE;
if (!$have_lower && ($code_char>=97 && $code_char<=122)) $code_ok = FALSE;

//Bad Chars
if (($code_char >= 58 && $code_char<=64) || ($code_char >= 91 && $code_char<=96)) $code_ok = FALSE;
} while (!$code_ok);

//Add Character to Code
$code .= chr($code_char);

}

return $code;
}
}

Just call the function like the previous one but configuring the settings like so:

$code = simple_code(5, TRUE, FALSE, TRUE);
$code = $object->simple_code(5, TRUE, FALSE, TRUE);

The arguements after the length of the code is as follow:

Have numbers in the code
Have capital letters in the code
Have lower case letters in the code

Here are some examples of different configurations for you to understand how it works.

$code = simple_code(5, TRUE, FALSE, FALSE); //Numbers only
$code = simple_code(5, FALSE, TRUE, TRUE); //Letters only
$code = simple_code(5, TRUE, TRUE, FALSE); //Numbers and capital letters only