Install iWatch

apt-get install iwatch

I’ve got this 1 liner in a [...]]]> iWatch is a perl script that uses inotify to monitor files directories. It’s similar to the watch tool, which can do all sorts of stuff if the files or directories it’s watching are modified or affected in pretty much any way at all.

Install iWatch

apt-get install iwatch

I’ve got this 1 liner in a file to quickly watch my directory and execute a PHP unit test .

#!/bin/bash
iwatch -c "phpunit $1" -t ‘.*php$’ -r -v -x ./.git -e modify .

I run this with a my argument (a unit test) and then sit there and code away. When I save, it detects the change and automatically runs my test. It’s pretty awesome.

I’ve asked a bunch of Linux sys admins how to fix this – and the answer is always “put the [...]]]> I’ve run into a ton of issues working with crons, mostly with the $PATH variable screwing things up. Scripts work when run manually on the command line, but fail when run in cron. Very annoying.

I’ve asked a bunch of Linux sys admins how to fix this – and the answer is always “put the full path in your scripts” which to me in unacceptable as it introduces the possibility of human error. Fixing the underlying problem is always preferred.

You can add a PATH variable to the top of your crontab that all scripts will use instead of the default one which doesn’t access /usr/local/bin or any other PATH variables you had set elsewhere.

At the top of your crontab, simply put something like this:

PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:.

This has been an issue for me for years. It also solves the issue of php shell_exec, exec, system, and passthru not having access to the PATH variable.

You’ll need to keep your PATH up to date, but it’s easier than manually editing every script, or messing around with hacks to get every script to work properly.

Enjoy!

This looks like a pretty cool tool to get a good idea of what’s going on in your PHP script without having to install tools like XDebug and Webgrind / KCacheGrind.

I’m not sure how this is anything new, tons of [...]]]>

This looks like a pretty cool tool to get a good idea of what’s going on in your PHP script without having to install tools like XDebug and Webgrind / KCacheGrind.

I’m not sure how this is anything new, tons of applications have their own volume setting. Quicktime, VLC, Windows Media Player.

Doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to get out now. It’s essentially just a giant ad for Fox TV shows and movies.

Joel Downs believes Tivo should open an app store. I suppose if they are going to continue with their business model, it would make sense, since it probably won’t be long till the Xbox has Tivo functionality. It might already, but I wouldn’t know.

Speaking of an App store, Apple seems to be doing OK. The sad thing is I still haven’t thought of an interesting app to write.

Enjoy!

find . -name ‘*.php’ -exec php -l {} \; | grep “Errors parsing”

Edit: this is actually a reoccurring bug we’re seeing with the memcache 2.2.3 stable build on 2 different boxes
2nd Edit: Actually it was a bug in my code. I wasn’t setting the server and ip correctly, there was a typo in [...]]]> I got this today. Solved by restarting the Memcached server. Move along.

Edit: this is actually a reoccurring bug we’re seeing with the memcache 2.2.3 stable build on 2 different boxes
2nd Edit: Actually it was a bug in my code. I wasn’t setting the server and ip correctly, there was a typo in my configuration

If you’re using curl in your PHP app to make web requests, you’ve probably realized that by doing them one after the other, the total time of your request is the sum [...]]]> Let’s get one thing out in the open. Curl is sweet. It does it’s job very well, and I’m absoutely thrilled it exists.

If you’re using curl in your PHP app to make web requests, you’ve probably realized that by doing them one after the other, the total time of your request is the sum of all the requests put together. That’s lame.

Unfortunately using the curl_multi_exec is poorly documented in the PHP manual.

Let’s say that your app is hitting APIs from these servers:

Google: .1s
Microsoft: .3s
rustyrazorblade.com: .5s

Your total time will be .9s, just for api calls.

By using curl_multi_exec, you can execute those requests in parallel, and you’ll only be limited by the slowest request, which is about .5 sec to rustyrazorblade in this case, assuming your download bandwidth is not slowing you down.

Sample code:

$nodes = array('http://www.google.com', 'http://www.microsoft.com', 'http://www.rustyrazorblade.com');
$node_count = count($nodes);

$curl_arr = array();
$master = curl_multi_init();

for($i = 0; $i < $node_count; $i++)
{
	$url =$nodes[$i];
	$curl_arr[$i] = curl_init($url);
	curl_setopt($curl_arr[$i], CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
	curl_multi_add_handle($master, $curl_arr[$i]);
}

do {
    curl_multi_exec($master,$running);
} while($running > 0);

echo "results: ";
for($i = 0; $i < $node_count; $i++)
{
	$results = curl_multi_getcontent  ( $curl_arr[$i]  );
	echo( $i . "\n" . $results . "\n");
}
echo 'done';

It’s really not documented on php.net how to use curl_multi_getcontent, so hopefully this helps someone.