Useful PHP Snippets
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As a PHP developer i’m always in the search for little snippets to add to my library. This at times so often proves useful when coding big projects and quick little functions. Snippets as such are great to add to existing CMS systems, such as WordPress, drupal or Joomla.

Calculate distances in PHP

I used this on an accommodation website not to long ago. this snippet allows you to measure the distance from one point to another. Great combo with Google maps too!

function distance($lat1, $lon1, $lat2, $lon2, $unit) {
$theta = $lon1 - $lon2;
$dist = sin(deg2rad($lat1)) * sin(deg2rad($lat2)) +  cos(deg2rad($lat1)) * cos(deg2rad($lat2)) * cos(deg2rad($theta));
$dist = acos($dist);
$dist = rad2deg($dist);
$miles = $dist * 60 * 1.1515;
$unit = strtoupper($unit);
 if ($unit == "K") {
return ($miles * 1.609344);
} else if ($unit == "N") {
return ($miles * 0.8684);
} else {
return $miles;
}
}

Force file download

This allows you to force file downloads such as mp3 and other files being played in browsers.

function downloadFile($file){
$file_name = $file;
$mime = 'application/force-download';
header('Pragma: public');   // required
header('Expires: 0');       // no cache
header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
header('Cache-Control: private',false);
header('Content-Type: '.$mime);
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.basename($file_name).'"');
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
header('Connection: close');
readfile($file_name);       // push it out
exit();
}

Get latitude and longitude from an address

This is a great snippet and goes well with the first one i mentioned. This allows you grab the latitude and longitude from the Google map url and returning the values as an array!

function getLatLong($address){
if (!is_string($address))die("All Addresses must be passed as a string");
$_url = sprintf('http://maps.google.com/maps?output=js&q=%s',rawurlencode($address));
$_result = false;
if($_result = file_get_contents($_url)) {
if(strpos($_result,'errortips') > 1 || strpos($_result,'Did you mean:') !== false) return false;
preg_match('!center:\s*{lat:\s*(-?\d+\.\d+),lng:\s*(-?\d+\.\d+)}!U', $_result, $_match);
$_coords['lat'] = $_match[1];
$_coords['long'] = $_match[2];
}
return $_coords;
}

Get how many times a page have been retweeted using PHP

This snippet will return the number of tweets that a page was tweeted. Using the tweetmeme API

function tweetCount($url) {
$content = file_get_contents("http://api.tweetmeme.com/url_info?url=".$url);
$element = new SimpleXmlElement($content);
$retweets = $element->story->url_count;
if($retweets){
return $retweets;
} else {
return 0;
}
}

Send Mail using mail function in PHP

$to = "viralpatel.net@gmail.com";
$subject = "VIRALPATEL.net";
$body = "Body of your message here you can use HTML too. e.g.
<strong> Bold </strong>";
$headers = "From: Peter\r\n";
$headers .= "Reply-To: info@yoursite.com\r\n";
$headers .= "Return-Path: info@yoursite.com\r\n";
$headers .= "X-Mailer: PHP5\n";
$headers .= 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\n";
$headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";
mail($to,$subject,$body,$headers);
?&gt;

Updated 7/8/2011

Validate email Address

This snippet will help you validate a email addy. It will check the MX records of the domain to make sure the email is more robust

function is_valid_email($email, $test_mx = false)
{
    if(eregi("^([_a-z0-9-]+)(\.[_a-z0-9-]+)*@([a-z0-9-]+)(\.[a-z0-9-]+)*(\.[a-z]{2,4})$", $email))
        if($test_mx)
        {
            list($username, $domain) = split("@", $email);
            return getmxrr($domain, $mxrecords);
        }
        else
            return true;
    else
        return false;
}

Zip Files on the Fly

Snippet created by David Walsh. zip files on the fly!

/* creates a compressed zip file */
function create_zip($files = array(),$destination = '',$overwrite = false) {
    //if the zip file already exists and overwrite is false, return false
    if(file_exists($destination) && !$overwrite) { return false; }
    //vars
    $valid_files = array();
    //if files were passed in...
    if(is_array($files)) {
        //cycle through each file
        foreach($files as $file) {
            //make sure the file exists
            if(file_exists($file)) {
                $valid_files[] = $file;
            }
        }
    }
    //if we have good files...
    if(count($valid_files)) {
        //create the archive
        $zip = new ZipArchive();
        if($zip->open($destination,$overwrite ? ZIPARCHIVE::OVERWRITE : ZIPARCHIVE::CREATE) !== true) {
            return false;
        }
        //add the files
        foreach($valid_files as $file) {
            $zip->addFile($file,$file);
        }
        //debug
        //echo 'The zip archive contains ',$zip->numFiles,' files with a status of ',$zip->status;

        //close the zip -- done!
        $zip->close();

        //check to make sure the file exists
        return file_exists($destination);
    }
    else
    {
        return false;
    }
}
/***** Example Usage ***/
$files=array('file1.jpg', 'file2.jpg', 'file3.gif');
create_zip($files, 'myzipfile.zip', true);

Resize Images on the fly

This is a very useful snippet, especially when design wordpress templates and so on. Even shopping comparison websites!

/**********************
*@filename - path to the image
*@tmpname - temporary path to thumbnail
*@xmax - max width
*@ymax - max height
*/
function resize_image($filename, $tmpname, $xmax, $ymax)
{
    $ext = explode(".", $filename);
    $ext = $ext[count($ext)-1];

    if($ext == "jpg" || $ext == "jpeg")
        $im = imagecreatefromjpeg($tmpname);
    elseif($ext == "png")
        $im = imagecreatefrompng($tmpname);
    elseif($ext == "gif")
        $im = imagecreatefromgif($tmpname);

    $x = imagesx($im);
    $y = imagesy($im);

    if($x <= $xmax && $y <= $ymax)
        return $im;

    if($x >= $y) {
        $newx = $xmax;
        $newy = $newx * $y / $x;
    }
    else {
        $newy = $ymax;
        $newx = $x / $y * $newy;
    }

    $im2 = imagecreatetruecolor($newx, $newy);
    imagecopyresized($im2, $im, 0, 0, 0, 0, floor($newx), floor($newy), $x, $y);
    return $im2;
}

Please bookmark this post, im going to weekly update it with snippets so watch this space!

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