//make sure your time is set
date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York');

$datetime = '2004-02-12T15:19:21+00:00';

//convert the given datetime string to time
$newDatetime = strtotime($datetime);

//re-contruct to format
$newDatetime = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', newDatetime);

It’s so obvious, but I only wished, I knew this before trying all sort of crazy stuff.

If you want to unit test an action in a controller that checks the request to see if is an XML HTTP Request using the isXmlHttpRequest() method provided by the Zend Framework, then you will definitely run into a problem.

isXmlHttpRequest() pretty much checks to see if the $_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH'] is set with ‘XMLHttpRequest’, if not, then returns FALSE. I thought that by setting the server variable with XMLHttpRequest directly will allow me to bypass the check.

function myAjaxTestAction()
{
      $_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH'] = 'XMLHttpRequest';

      //then do your ajax tests here
}

This solution seemed like it was going to work, but it turns out that isXmlHttpRequest() makes a call to getHeader() like this:

public function isXmlHttpRequest()
{
        return ($this->getHeader('X_REQUESTED_WITH') == 'XMLHttpRequest');
}

What I didn’t know is that when you are doing unit tests the framework extends the HTTP class and changes the getHeader() to only use headers set using the setHeader or setHeaders methods.
After a couple of minutes tracing over the calls being made. I discovered that the fix was pretty simple, set our headers doing the following in your test case:

function myAjaxTestAction()
{
      $this->request->setHeader('X_REQUESTED_WITH');

      //then do your ajax tests here
}

This will fake an AJAX request and return the expected result.

I hope this article helps many of you since I spent many hours trying to decipher why setting ‘XMLHttpRequest’ to the $_SERVER did not work as I expected.

If no other git process is currently running, this probably means a
git process crashed in this repository earlier. Make sure no other git
process is running and remove the file manually to continue.

The solution is very easy, just delete the .git/index.lock file
~ rm /yourhomedir/.git/index.lock

Then you need to do a git reset
~ git reset

That should do the trick. Let me know if this worked for you.

Today I tried to install Zend Studio 7.0 on the latest 64-bit version of Ubuntu (9.10). Initially, it would just throw an error. (exec: 2481: /tmp/install.dir.2855/Linux/resource/jre/bin/java: not found). Since, the error was related to the installer not being able to find the java JRE that came bundled with the installer, I decided to install with the system’s JRE using:

./ZendStudio7_0_0.bin LAX_VM /usr/bin/java

That seemed to do the trick, but, once the installer had finished. Trying to open Zend Studio would give me an error (Failed to execute child process “/usr/local/Zend/Zend Studio-7.0.0/ZendStudio” (No such file or directory)). At this point I was about to give up, until I did a little bit of research and found that the problem was more simple that I imagined.

Just run the following command in your terminal window:

sudo aptitude install libc6-i386 ia32-libs

ia32 is a package that contains runtime libraries for the ia32/i386 architecture, configured for use on systems running a 64-bit kernel. This will allow to install and run Zend Studio, but It will enable compatibility with any other application designed for 32-bit processors.

After running the above command, and installing Zend Studio, I ran into my second problem. A bug in eclipse that would not allow me to click on next or finish in certain windows. In my case, was when I was trying to create a new remote connection. To fix this problem I had to do the following steps:

• 1). Open terminal and go to Zend Studio Directory.
• 2). Create a new file called ZendStudio.sh and open it.
  vi ZendStudio.sh
• 3). Paste the following code, save and then close it:
  #!/bin/sh
CURDIR=`dirname $0`
export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1
$CURDIR/ZendStudio
• 4). Change the permissions of the file for execution
  chmod +w ZendStudio.sh
• 5). Go to your application launcher, and right click and select properties.
  Once in the properties dialog, modify the command field.

  Change the path from:

  "/home/{USER}/Zend/ZendStudio-7.0.0/ZendStudio"

  to

  "/home/{USER}/Zend/ZendStudio-7.0.0/ZendStudio.sh"

  So basically you are adding the .sh extension.

• 6). Close the window and open Zend Studio, everything should be working fine now.

I hope this information helps you if you happen to run with the same problem I did. Let me know if you have a different solution.

Working now on some iGoogle like dashboard for the system I’m developing.

I was trying some stuff out with CURL and was having a hard time to maintain my current session when making a curl request to another page. I needed to stay authenticated in order to retrieve my widget.

Here is my initial code:

$strCookie = 'PHPSESSID=' . $_COOKIE['PHPSESSID'] . '; path=/';
$ch = curl_init($rssFeedLink);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIE, $strCookie );
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

The problem with that piece of code is that it was generating a new session id instead of sending my current session.

The solution? Put session_write_close() before you make the CURL request.

$strCookie = 'PHPSESSID=' . $_COOKIE['PHPSESSID'] . '; path=/';

session_write_close();

$ch = curl_init($rssFeedLink);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIE, $strCookie );
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

What does session_write_close() do? It, ends the current session and store session data. Apparently, PHP does not like when multiple scripts play around with the session, so, it locks it. Putting session_write_close makes sure that your current session is stored so you can retrieve it and use it.

This little issue had my head spinning for a few hours, so, I hope this article helps you.