I code, therefore I am... a software engineer.

Linux

Dump A MySQL Database To YAML Using PHP

by

The Problem

I was recently working on a project that is built on WordPress / BuddyPress. I built up some content using the CMS features of WordPress in my development server and then I transfered the WordPress content to a beta server using the export/import functionality. That kind of stinks having to do that every time I want to push updates to my beta server. So I looked into using Doctrine to generate data fixtures which I could repeatedly run against the different database. Doctrine supports YAML files, which are extremely easy to edit by hand, so it seemed like a good idea.

So what’s the problem? Well, I didn’t currently have any of my data in YAML files. I didn’t want to had edit them or do some sort of copy and paste madness. So, I wrote a script in PHP to dump my data into a YAML file.

Read more

Modify PHP CLI Include Path Dynamically

by

I was working with an application platform that I had just downloaded today. I just wanted to check it out and play with it a bit. In the application framework was an executable script that provided some command line utility. I fired up the script and received an error like “PHP Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required…”. Of course non of the files from the downloaded archived were in the include path for my system, but I didn’t want to just go adding it to my php.ini file just to play around with it short term. What to do.

Command Line Options

First I wanted to see if there was a command line option that I could pass to PHP to tell it what include_path to use for just this one execution. If you execute the following you’ll see the usage:
php --help
There is no include_path command line option, but there is the -d foo[=bar] option which allows us to modify any of the INI entries by key/value.

Read more

Bash Script Init Style Status Message

by

Have you ever wondered how the OK and/or FAILED messages are printed out in the initialization of services on a Linux system during bootup? Well… I have. Anyway, I’ve always thought that it was really cool how the OK and FAILED messages printed out at the same column on the screen and in different colors. So of course I wanted to know how to do that so I could use it in my own scripts.

Read more

How To Create A Bash Install Script

by

Have you ever wanted to create an installer program on a Linux system, but didn’t want all the hassle of an actual install builder? I have. I recently had need of a simple, no frills installation that could: ask the user a few questions extract some binary files and do some stuff with those binary …

Read more

Revolution OS – The Linux Story

by

Revolution OS is a 2001 documentary which traces the history of GNU, Linux, and the open source and free software movements. It features several interviews with prominent hackers and entrepreneurs (and hackers-cum-entrepreneurs), including Richard Stallman, Michael Tiemann, Linus Torvalds, Larry Augustin, Eric S. Raymond, Bruce Perens, Frank Hecker and Brian Behlendorf. The film begins in …

Read more

Will The Google Phone Overtake The iPhone?

by

The release of Apple’s iPhone has made tremendous waves in the cellphone industry. However, the honeymoon is over and the iPhone has been “cracked” in favor or more user customization and third party applications. Apple has announced an SDK (software developer kit) to be release for the iPhone coming in February 2008, but by then …

Read more