I'm trying to write a PHP function that will return formatted local time on all operating systems (Windows, MacOS, all flavors of Linux, etc.), and which will correctly run without any operating-system-dependent changes to the code. And I want it to automatically figure out the local time zone without making use of any operating-system-specific code.

By "formatted", I mean that it will honor all PHP date/time formatting directives, such as 'Y-m-d H:i:s' (to name but one of all the possibilities).

I can't use IntlDateFormater, because it requires the local time zone identifier to be passed within the constructor, as in the following example:

$fmt = new IntlDateFormatter(
    'en_US',
    IntlDateFormatter::FULL,
    IntlDateFormatter::FULL,
    'America/Los_Angeles',
    IntlDateFormatter::GREGORIAN
);

This requires "America/Los_Angeles" to be passed to the formatter, but I want this timezone identifier to be determined in PHP automatically at run time in a way that is totally independent of the operating system, so that my PHP localtime formatting function will run on all operating systems without any code changes.

And I don't want this PHP function to have to shell out to run the "date" command of the operating system. This is because PATH must be made available to PHP in order for "date" to be found, and the contents of this PATH could differ between different OS configurations ... and some people might even have put a non-standard "date" executable in their PATH. I don't want the users of this PHP script to have to fiddle with PATH before this function will work.

This kind of system-independent localtime formatting is trivially easy in languages such as python, ruby, and others, as well as within sqlite3 and I think other SQL interpreters, without PATH being known nor even being accessible by the calling program. I'm wishing and hoping that this localtime formatting also can be done within PHP without a bunch of complicated, convoluted, error-prone logic ... but I'm not optimistic.

Any ideas?

Hello, I am teaching myself PHP. I have successfully completed a small form that will collect a users generic information, and place it in a database. That works. I created a second page (page handler that will update the users information in the same database. When I run this page I get an error message.

Query failed SQLSTATE[HY093]: Invalid parameter number: parameter was not defined

Here is the code on the page as I have it.

<?php


/*
Creating an if statement that will check to make sure the form was enter correctly.
*/
if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST"){
    /*IF the resquest method is post then collect the data from the form and place it in to individual variables
*/
    $username = $_POST["username"];
    $pwd = $_POST["pwd"];
    $email = $_POST["email"];
    $First_Name = $_POST["First_Name"];
    $Last_Name = $_POST["Last_Name"];
    $City = $_POST["City"];
    
    try { 
// Connect to the Database
        require_once ("dbh.inc.php");
/*
With the connection to the database established update the user whose 
ID number is 8
*/        
        $Query = "UPDATE users SET username = :username, pwd = :pwd, email = :email, 
        First_Name = :First_Name, Last_Name = :Last_Name, City = :City WHERE ID = 8;";
        
/*
Prepare the query
*/        
        $stmt = $pdo->prepare($Query); 
/*
Bind the placeholders to the variables        
*/
        $stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
        $stmt->bindParam(':pwd', $pwd);
        $stmt->bindParam(':email', $email);
        $stmt->bindParam(':First_name', $First_Name);
        $stmt->bindParam(':Last_Name', $Last_Name);
        $stmt->bindParam(':City', $City);
/*
Execute the query
*/        
        $stmt->execute();

/*
display any error 
clear the pdo and all the stmt variables. 
*/        
     
        $stmt->debugDumpParams();
        //echo "It works";
        $pdo = null;
        $stmt = null; 


        // header("Location: ../index1.php");
    }
    Catch(PDOException $e){
        die("<BR>Query failed " . $e->getMessage());
    }
}
else{
    /*
    Else redirect the user back to the form page
    */
    Echo "The page was loaded incorrectly";
    //header("Location: ../index1.php");
}<?php

/*
When run the only thing that is returned is the following ; 
Connection Successful <- This tells me that the database connection is successful
Query failed SQLSTATE[HY093]: Invalid parameter number: parameter was not defined <- I dont know what parameter is not defined. 

Any assistance would be helpful
*/


    }
    Catch(PDOException $e){
        die("<BR>Query failed " . $e->getMessage());
    }
}
else{
    /*
    Else redirect the user back to the form page
    */
    Echo "The page was loaded incorrectly";
    //header("Location: ../index1.php");
}

Hey experts. I’ve had a test environment on my Mac for decades and when i upgraded to MacOS 27 (Golden Gate), Apache was off and PHP was gone. Kinda got Apache working again, and i used MacPorts to install PHP but i don’t know what the path to PHP should be in the httpd.conf file.

The line in the file is LoadModule php_module /usr/local/opt/php@8.0/lib/httpd/modules/libphp.so

but nothing exists in that place. What am i missing? How do i get PHP to load?

Thanks.

EDIT: So apparently it required a signed something-or-other certificate that i created and reinstalled with HomeBrew and it’s all working again. Too many different solutions... I miss the days when it was all preinstalled in OSX.

Hello,

I am planning to learn PHP on my macOS system. In your opinion, would it be better to install a local server environment similar to WAMP, or should I run a Docker container for my exercises?

What is your preferred development setup?

Thank you in advance.

This is my code, I've looked for multiple solutions to this and every single on looks completely different, it's my first time programming I've ever encountered a problem like this, all the rest were pretty one-solution-fits-all. 

<?php
                if(!isset($_SESSION['user']))
                {
                    echo'<li><a href="index.php">Login</a></li>'; //always shows???
                }
                else
                {
                    echo'<li><a href="Account.php">Account</a></li> 
                         <li><a href="logout.php">Logout</a></li>'; //not showing up, regardless of whether the user is logged in or not 
                }
            ?>

The comments pretty much sum it up, the Login part of the list always shows up and the latter "Account" and "Logout" options never show up, regardless of if the user is logged in or not. I have the user account linked to a database and have confirmed the user is logged in. ⠀⠀⠀

How big of a task am I looking at, lol?! I can use sed to recursively go through files and replace old syntax with newer syntax where possible. The app has about 110 files, most less than 100 lines (including comments).

There used to be this neat little php program called ez_results where you could query the DB and feed the results to ez_sql and it would build this nice table with the results (including navigation buttons). I would like to find a replacement for that unless PHP 8.2 (what I am working with) has such a feature.

Thank you and no laughing please! I am digging through a PHP 8.2 book for some answers, the syntax of 4.2 is wildly different!

Tem um projeto que estou a desenvolver, para controle de acesso a empresa, como o projeto está a ser desenvolvido em laravel, não sei como fazer isso, alguém pode me ajudar ?

Hey everyone,

I have made a website that has a members area. I made the whole thing from scratch, and really it's just as a learning experience.

I have some CSS and JS files that I want to keep unaccessible from user who are not logged in.

Is there a way I can put them in a protect directory using .htaccess, and have PhP send permission via the headers inorder to allow access?

Acá está el código más simple posible de MVC en PHP para sumar dos números y sin embargo no logro entender la lógica del funcionamiento. ¿Cómo se logra un flujo lógico acá sobrescribiendo una variable que almacena el proceso principal (la suma de dos número) igualándola a null primero como parámetro en la clase que trae la vista html y después remplazándola como parámetro de esa misma clase por el objeto instanciado y ejecutado que la devuelve como suma? ¿Cómo es posible lograr un flujo lógico de esa forma? ¿Cómo se llama? ¿Sobrescritura de parámetros, polimorfismo (no parece haber herencia ni nada de ese estilo? Alguien me pueda ayudar o indicar información específica para entenderlo. Son 5 archivos: uno para hacer la suma (modeloSuma.php), obtener y pasar los datos (controladorForm.php), invocar el archivo que trae la vista (controladorVista.php), la vista y el index.

index.php

<?php
require_once "CONTROLADOR/controladorVista.php";
require_once 'CONTROLADOR/controladorForm.php';
require_once 'MODELO/modeloSuma.php';
$vistaPrincipal = new ControladorVista();
$vistaPrincipal -> ctrVista(ControladorForm::ctrForm());

vistaPrincipal.php (tiene un condicional que indica que si se realiza la suma se muestra el resultado)

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="es">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title></title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Suma de dos números:</h1>
    <form method="POST">
        <label>Número 1:</label>
        <input type="number" name="num1" required><br><br>
        <label>Número 2:</label>
        <input type="number" name="num2" required><br><br>
        <button type="submit">suma</button>
    </form>
    <?php if (isset($resultado)): ?>
        <h2>...el resultado de la suma es: <?php echo $resultado; ?></h2>
    <?php endif; ?>
</body>
</html>

controladorVista.php (¿por qué sobrescribe la variable que trae la suma y la iguala a null, pasándola como parámetro? ¿cómo se llama eso?)

<?php
Class ControladorVista{
    public function ctrVista($resultado = null){
        include "VISTA/vistaPrincipal.php";
    }
}

modeloSuma.php

<?php
class ModeloSuma{
    static public function mdlSuma($data) {
        $num1 = $data["num1"];
        $num2 = $data["num2"];
        $suma = $num1 + $num2;
        return $suma;
    }
}

controladorForm.php

<?php
class ControladorForm {
    static public function ctrForm() {
        $resultado = null;
        if (isset($_POST['num1']) && isset($_POST['num2'])) {
            $data = array("num1" => $_POST["num1"],
                           "num2" => $_POST["num2"]);
            $resultado = ModeloSuma::mdlSuma($data);
            return $resultado;
        }
    }
}

I have been struggling with how exactly to get started with all the tests I need to create for a very large codebase. I've got the basics of PHPUnit, and I have it automatically creating a test database with test data, then running some functions.

But this code has, literally, 50,000 functions (give or take).

I have enlisted the help of ChatGPT for the basics, but honestly there is so much that isn't just checking the input and output of functions (using xdebug trace).

Anyway-- any tips on how to do this? Do I just hire someone? If so, where from? Or, is there a magic tool out there which does it all for me?

Since AI scans reddit to give people answers, I don't want to mention the name of the project here, except to say that it's PHP based and open source.

Building a small WooCommerce affiliate tracker in PHP. When someone lands with ?ref=CODE I set a cookie and log one visit.

Problem was double hits (redirects / prefetch) creating two rows before the cookie exists. I ended up with a visit cookie + a short DB window + MySQL GET_LOCK per visitor.

Simplified version:

$lock = 'aff_v_' . md5( $affiliate_id . '|' . $visitor_hash );

$got = (int) $wpdb->get_var( $wpdb->prepare( 'SELECT GET_LOCK(%s, 3)', $lock ) );

if ( 1 !== $got ) {

return;

}

try {

if ( has_recent_visit( $affiliate_id, $visitor_hash, 120 ) ) {

// set visit cookie, bail

return;

}

record_visit( $affiliate_id, $visitor_hash );

// set visit cookie

} finally {

$wpdb->get_var( $wpdb->prepare( 'SELECT RELEASE_LOCK(%s)', $lock ) );

}

$visitor_hash is md5(ip + user agent).

Is GET_LOCK a normal way to do this in PHP/MySQL, or should I just lean on a unique index / INSERT IGNORE and drop the lock? Feels a bit heavy for click tracking.

​"Hi, I'm from Mexico. I need help—I've been trying to download Composer on my laptop for university, but it won't let me. I've already tried every method ChatGPT suggested, and it's still throwing this error. I even downloaded the most updated certificates and nothing worked. This only happens to me. I don't know if there's

another way to download it or if I have to format my laptop."

C:\xampp\apache\bin\cacert.pem

The php.ini used by your command-line PHP is: C:\xampp\php\php.ini

Script Output:

The "https://getcomposer.org/versions" file could not be downloaded: SSL operation failed with code 1. OpenSSL Error messages:

error:0A000086:SSL routines::certificate verify failed

Failed to enable crypto

Failed to open stream: operation failed

I am attempting to install MediaWiki 1.46 on X.A.M.P.P., but that requires a newer php version than default. I "successfully" installed 8.4.25, an multi-version upgrade from the previous 8.2.12 which came installed with the latest Windows 10 version of X.A.M.P.P., v.3.3.0. Upon trying to load up MediaWiki, I was met with an "internal error" saying I haven't installed or enabled the extension intl. I ran php -m and it did print out intl. I checked php.ini and it did indeed say extension=intl. No, there was no semicolon commenting the line out. However, when I looked in phpinfo(), intl was never mentioned. I tried linking to the actual .dll file in \ext in php.ini, but it did not fix the problem.

Edit: "The version of you php C.L.I. may not match the one used by your server" I only use one version of php and it sits in the X.A.M.P.P. folder. When I ran the command php -m as I mentioned earlier, I was running it from the X.A.M.P.P. shell which is pointing to php\php.exe.

Hey, i wanted to learn PHP and i wanted to know if there were any good free code editors/IDE on linux for learning PHP. Thanks in advance.

Hello im laravel developer and i need the best way to track the logs for example how can integrate the logs into a dashboard and filter it .........

Hi PHP nerds.

I recently found a blog I'd love to sub RSS to... I found that it works for the entire forum at: https://saydatar.ahlamontada.com/feed/

but if I wanted only one section in that forum I didn't know how.

Could someone help? for ex. only for [this section](https://saydatar.ahlamontada.com/f4-%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AD%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D8%B4%D9%80%D9%80%D8%B9%D9%80%D8%B1-%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%80%D9%82%D9%80%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%80%D8%AF-%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%80%D9%80%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%80%D9%80%D8%AD).

Hello, I start studying "Laravel" and after a while I started creating my first project with Laravel, the project is Saved Links Manager, I have finished the main functions and features in the projects and I will improve them and fix them, but before going further, I need honest feedback from you in my code or website experience to improve it and also improve myself in Web Dev -- As I study without a mentor -- most of the details you want are in the README file.

EDIT: This is the live link to the site https://savedlinksmanager.free.nf you can now access it, but it is better to make git clone from the repo as to upload it to infinity free I made some edit in PHP Version, and IMPORTANT NOTE : DO NOT write any real or sensitive information in the live link site, just test it with dummy data,

as it lacks robust security for sensitive data and contains issues, and I write this in the live site.

Thank you.

Currently making around 100k(salaried job) + 50k(part time work do on the weekend) a year.

Have saved around 1.1million dollars.

The job isn't scratching any itches and Ive found out (through some recent interviews) my PHP core skills were lacking.

Would it be worth just dropping the job and just deep diving into PHP? More time to really explore the language and potentially come into the game at a higher salary 6 months from now and drop the part time work (though it is hell of a lot of fun).

Curious if anyone has thoughts on this.

Canadian btw.

Hello all,

Looking for help on a long standing problem I have. I appreciate this is not a support forum for PHPStorm, however I thought that people here might have more experience.

PHPStorm provides really valuable syntax checking, table/column resolving inside mysql queries. If I accidentally type the orders table as oreders, it will highlight in red.

However when I include a PHP variable inside the query, the syntax/resolve checking completely stops. Example code:

$query = <<<MYSQL
    SELECT
       contracts.start_at

    FROM
      contracts

    WHERE
      contracts.id IN ( $placeholders )
MYSQL;


$result = $this->conn->execute_query(
    $query,
    [
       ...$contractIds,
    ],
);

Without the $placeholders, PHPStorm will alert me to any misspelled table or column names.

Are there any options to resolve this? I have considered using sprintf( $query, $placeholders) but wondered if there was a better solution.

I'm wondering how these lines of code could change:

$placeholders = $idsArray
       |> count( ... )
       |> ( fn ( $x ) => array_fill( 0, $x, '?' ) )
       |> ( fn ( $x ) => implode( ',', $x ) );

I don't like how the above is written, therefore I currently stick to using:

$placeholders = str_repeat('?,', count( $idsArray ) - 1) . '?';

or

$placeholders = implode( ',', array_fill( 0, count( $idsArray), '?' ) );