PHP – Use

From a follow on from my previous post about namespace, when you want to use another name, shorter than the actual namespace of the namespace you are able to use “use”. Probably best to show in code

include "codingfriends.php";
 
use codingfriends as cf;
 
echo cf\sayHello()."<br/>";

the codingfriends.php file is

<?php
namespace codingfriends;
 
function sayHello()
{
    echo "Say hello from codingfriends.";    
}
 
function sayHelloFromSub()
{
    echo sub\sayHello();
}
?>

so that the “use” will alter the namespace of codingfriends to cf instead so that you are able to call codingfriends as cf, so when

echo cf\sayHello()."<br/>";

is called it will call the codingfriends\sayHello() function.

PHP – namespace

Namespace‘ing is a great way of splitting functions / classes into different spaces that could have the same name but do not cause issues. This is great if you are trying to combine different projects together that many have the same function names and you want to call different projects code functions without having to worry that you are calling the wrong function.

For example if you have a file called codingfriends.php

<?php
namespace codingfriends;
 
function sayHello()
{
    echo "Say hello from codingfriends.";    
}
 
function sayHelloFromSub()
{
    echo sub\sayHello();
}
?>

and another file called codingfriendssub.php

<?php
namespace codingfriends\sub;
 
function sayHello()
{
    echo "Say hello from codingfriends sub module";    
}
?>

and then have the index.php file

 
<?
include "codingfriends.php";
include "codingfriends.sub.php";
 
echo codingfriends\sayHello()."<br/>"; // calling the codingfriends namespace
echo codingfriends\sub\sayHello()."<br/>"; // call the codingfriends sub namespace
echo codingfriends\sayHelloFromSub()."<br/>"; // calling the sub namespace quicker.
?>

then the first two lines include the two different name spaces and you are able to call the same function names without having to worry that you are calling the wrong function.

echo codingfriends\sayHello()."<br/>"; // calling the codingfriends namespace

will call the sayHello() from within the namespace codingfriends

echo codingfriends\sub\sayHello()."<br/>"; // call the codingfriends sub namespace

will call the namespace codingfriendssub sayHello function and the best thing is is if you are within a namespace and want to call a sub namespace within your namespace (it is like a tree with roots) you are able to do

    echo sub\sayHello();

from within the namespace codingfriends, it will find the codingfriends\sub namespace and then call the sayHello() function within that namespace.

The output would be for the index.php file

Say hello from codingfriends.
Say hello from codingfriends sub module
Say hello from codingfriends sub module

Google python code, string2.py

As from the previous post, I am doing the google’s python class code and if any one comes up different solutions to the googles version or mine, please post. So here is the string2.py solutions from me.

Verbing, needs to check for string over 3 and then only compare the last 3 characters for ‘ing’

# D. verbing
# Given a string, if its length is at least 3,
# add 'ing' to its end.
# Unless it already ends in 'ing', in which case
# add 'ly' instead.
# If the string length is less than 3, leave it unchanged.
# Return the resulting string.
def verbing(s):
  # +++your code here+++
  if len(s) < 3:
     return s
  elif (s[-3:] =='ing'):
     return s + 'ly'
  else:
     return s + 'ing'

Not bad, find the ‘not’ and ‘bad’, if bad after not then replace.

# E. not_bad
# Given a string, find the first appearance of the
# substring 'not' and 'bad'. If the 'bad' follows
# the 'not', replace the whole 'not'...'bad' substring
# with 'good'.
# Return the resulting string.
# So 'This dinner is not that bad!' yields:
# This dinner is good!
def not_bad(s):
  # +++your code here+++
  notV = s.find('not')
  badV = s.find('bad')
  if (badV > notV):
     return s[:notV] + 'good' + s[(badV+3):]
  return s

Font back, here we needed the modulus function to find out the reminder of a division.

# F. front_back
# Consider dividing a string into two halves.
# If the length is even, the front and back halves are the same length.
# If the length is odd, we'll say that the extra char goes in the front half.
# e.g. 'abcde', the front half is 'abc', the back half 'de'.
# Given 2 strings, a and b, return a string of the form
#  a-front + b-front + a-back + b-back
def front_back(a, b):
  # +++your code here+++
  aV = len(a)/2+(len(a)%2)
  bV = len(b)/2+(len(b)%2)
  return a[:aV]+b[:bV]+a[aV:]+b[bV:]

Google python code

After been talking with some friends, they said about putting some of the google code from there classes online encase other people come up with any other versions. So from the first of the classes that they was talking about was Python , so here is my code for these, may be other people may be doing and come up with different code ?

For first string1.py test there is 4 functions that you have code up and in order from the source code.

Donut, as from the below you just need do a compare on the parameter in.

# A. donuts
# Given an int count of a number of donuts, return a string
# of the form 'Number of donuts: <count>', where <count> is the number
# passed in. However, if the count is 10 or more, then use the word 'many'
# instead of the actual count.
# So donuts(5) returns 'Number of donuts: 5'
# and donuts(23) returns 'Number of donuts: many'
def donuts(count):
  # +++your code here+++
  if count >= 10:
     return 'Number of donuts: many'
  return 'Number of donuts: ' + str(count)

Both end, it is string manipulation and returning part of the string if longer enough.

# B. both_ends
# Given a string s, return a string made of the first 2
# and the last 2 chars of the original string,
# so 'spring' yields 'spng'. However, if the string length
# is less than 2, return instead the empty string.
def both_ends(s):
  # +++your code here+++
  if len(s) < 2:
    return ''
  return s[:2] + s[-2:]

Fix start, replace the characters within the string with a * that the same as the first character, so just need to concatenate the first character with the rest of the characters with any replaced 🙂

# C. fix_start
# Given a string s, return a string
# where all occurences of its first char have
# been changed to '*', except do not change
# the first char itself.
# e.g. 'babble' yields 'ba**le'
# Assume that the string is length 1 or more.
# Hint: s.replace(stra, strb) returns a version of string s
# where all instances of stra have been replaced by strb.
def fix_start(s):
  # +++your code here+++
  return s[0] + s[1:].replace(s[0],'*')

Mix up, change the first 2 characters from the two parameters around.

# D. MixUp
# Given strings a and b, return a single string with a and b separated
# by a space '<a> <b>', except swap the first 2 chars of each string.
# e.g.
#   'mix', pod' -> 'pox mid'
#   'dog', 'dinner' -> 'dig donner'
# Assume a and b are length 2 or more.
def mix_up(a, b):
  # +++your code here+++
  return b[:2]+a[2:]+' '+a[:2]+b[2:]

Final and auto load a class

To include a class within many languages you have to define it at the top and then off you go with programming with using that class. Well within PHP you can use the __autoload function that is called when you try to create a new instance of a class.

function __autoload($class_name) 
{
	include "classes/".$class_name.".php";
}

this __autoload function above takes a parameter as the class name to load and then within the code it will try and load that class with how ever you want to, in this case I have placed the classes within the directory called classes and under there classname.php filename.

So if you try to load the class

$newclass = new basic();

it will look within the classes directory for the file basic.php for the autoload function above, you can alter it to load from where ever and how ever you want to.

The next part of this post is about the keyword ‘final’, the final keyword means that it is final so if you try and extend that class and extend the function that has been declared as final this will cause php interpretor to fail due to syntax error with something similar to

Fatal error: Cannot override final method class_name::function_name()

For an example here is two classes one is called basic and the other is called extendbasic, where the basic class has the final function within it

class basic
{
	public function sayHello()
	{
		echo "<br/>".get_class($this) . " : Hello";
	}
 
	final public function sayGoodbye()
	{
		echo "<br/>".get_class($this) . " : Goodbye";
	}
}

and here is the extendclass

class extendbasic extends basic
{
	public function sayHello()
	{
		echo "<br/>".get_class($this). " : the newer hello!!";	
		parent::sayHello();
	}
        // this will cause the php engine to fail!!!!!. because it is trying to over load the function sayGoogbye which has been declared as final
/*	public function sayGoodbye()
	{
		echo "I should not get here!!";
	}*/
}

Here is some code to call them both which they have been placed within a directory called ‘classes’

function __autoload($class_name) 
{
	include "classes/".$class_name.".php";
}
 
$basicClass = new basic();
$basicClass->sayHello();
$basicClass->sayGoodbye();
$basicClass = new extendbasic();
$basicClass->sayHello();
$basicClass->sayGoodbye();

and the output would be

basic : Hello
basic : Goodbye
extendbasic : the newer hello!!
extendbasic : Hello
extendbasic : Goodbye

I am calling the parent function from within the extendbasic class sayHello function.

Node – install and test

One of my friends asked me what is Node and also how do you install and test to make sure it is working.

Well, Node is in essence a javascript server side environment that allows you to write code that will allow the event model to handle requests very quickly since it does not handle the I/O (well almost of all of the functions within node do not!) so there is no-blocking of code.

Node has a very quick and capable http class that allows for the user to create a server that is capable of doing some very quick responses to multiple connections.

To install Node you just need to do this in ubuntu

sudo -s
apt-get install python-software-properties
add-apt-repository ppa:chris-lea/node.js
apt-get update
apt-get install nodejs
exit

the first line allows you to be the root and thus the next commands are as the user root.

Or if you are using windows just download the executable from here

To test the node to make sure it is working with a basic “Hello world!” example if you save this below as helloworld.js.

var http = require("http");
// create the http server function req'uest, res'ult
http.createServer(function (req, res) 
{
    // 200 = means http response code of found page, then a array of the content type
    res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type' : 'text/plain'});
    res.end('Hello world!');  // write out the text
}).listen(8080,'127.0.0.1');
// listen on port 8080 on the ip address 127.0.0.1
console.log('We have started, check your browser on http://127.0.0.1:8080/');

I am using a higher number than 1024 for the port because below that you need to be a root user or administrator on windows to allow anything to connect to those port numbers.

So if you now run the program with the javascript file above as the second parameter

node helloworld.js

and then if you open your browser at 127.0.0.1:8080 then you will see

Hello world!