I’m running PHP v5.2.9-2 with SQL Server 2005 Express on Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2.

Error Message

Warning: mssql_query() [function.mssql-query]: message: Unicode data in a Unicode-only collation or ntext data cannot be sent to clients using DB-Library (such as ISQL) or ODBC version 3.7 or earlier. (severity 16)

Solution

Specify the database columns within your database query (select filed1, field2 from foo). Avoid doing queries with the wildcard (*), select * from foo.

Source: PHP Manual on MSSQL_Query()

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$szQry = "SELECT column1, column2 FROM foo";
$szDBConn = mssql_connect("host","username","password");
mssql_select_db("database_name", $szDBConn);
$saResults = mssql_query($szQry, $szDBConn);
while($obResults = mssql_fetch_row($saResults))
{
   echo $obResults[0]." ".$obResults[1];
}
mssql_close($szDBConn);

Comments/description of Example

Line #1

SQL statement that will be sent to the MySQL database server.

Line #2

MSSQL database login credentilas; host (127.0.0.1), username and password.

The “host” is the server name or IP address of your database server. If your host has multiple instances the “host” value would be formatted like so “foo\bar”. If your using SQL Server Express the “host” name locally would be “.\SQLEXPRESS”.

Line #3

Select database using the login credentials provided above.

Line #4

Send SQL statement to database.

Line #5-8

Fetch results returned back from the SQL statement. I use a while loop to enumerate through each row of results returned. If you know only one row is going to be retunred the while loop is not necessary.

Line #9

Close database connection.

The following is the process I took to upgrade a web server with PHP v5.2.5 to PHP v5.2.8 running on OpenBSD. PEAR is already installed on this system and up to date. I wasn’t sure if I should exclude PEAR at install or not so therefore did not tell the configurator to exclude PEAR at install.

Installation Process

1. Download the latest stable PHP release from command prompt # wget http://ca.php.net/get/php-5.2.8.tar.gz/from/a/mirror
2. # tar -zxvf php-5.2.8.tar.gz
3. ./configure –with-mysql=/usr/local –with-mssql=/usr/local –with-apxs –with-zlib-dir=/usr/lib –with-config-file-path=/var/www/conf –with-iconv=/usr/local/bin/iconv –enable-exif –enable-mbstring –enable-calendar
4. # make
5. # make test
6. # make install
7. # make clean

As far as I could tell in the PHP 5 ChangeLog since at least PHP v5.2.5 there has not be any changes made to the php.ini configuration file. Therefore I chose to leave the PHP configuration file (php.ini) that was being used with PHP v5.2.5 for PHP v5.2.8.

Issues

1. At configure I received the following message “checking for a sed that does not truncate output… (cached) /usr/bin/sed
   expr: syntax error ./configure[2322]: test: 0: unexpected operator/operand expr: syntax error ./configure[2337]: test: 0: unexpected operator/operand”

I’m not sure what to make of this error message. I tried to search on Google but was not successful finding any answers. I tested my PHP installation and all appears to be okay. If anyone knows what exactly this error means and how to resolve it please let me know.

MS SQL Server 2005 – Example

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SELECT Web_Account_ID,
GroupNameConcat = REPLACE(
	(
	SELECT
		Web_Account_Group_Name_ID AS [DATA()]
	FROM
		tblWebAccountGroup WAG
	WHERE
		WAG.Web_Account_ID = WA.Web_Account_ID
	ORDER BY
		Web_Account_Group_Name_ID
            FOR XML PATH ('')
        ), ' ', ',')
FROM tblWebAccounts WA
ORDER BY Web_Account_ID

Query Results Example

Source: aspfaq.com – How do I concatenate strings from a column into a single row?

For some reason or another the priority menu in the edit task panel is not wide enough and therefore it cuts off the priority names. This can be easily fixed by modifying some inline CSS. Yes I agree this should be done within the skin’s CSS file, however there is nothing present in the CSS file to alter that I could find.

Solution

Edit /taskfreak/include/html/xajax_panel_edit.php at line #18 by changing the width value of “40px” to “125px” or to what you desired width.

Code Before

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<td>< ?php
$objTemp = new ItemPriority();
$objTemp->qSelect('priority',($objTask->priority)?$objTask->priority:3,'','','style="width:40px"');
?></td>

Code After

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<td>< ?php
$objTemp = new ItemPriority();
$objTemp->qSelect('priority',($objTask->priority)?$objTask->priority:3,'','','style="width:125px"');
?></td>

TaskFreak! presently does not have a means via the web interface to present a complete list of tasks for which the current user is the project leader. I will show you how to add “My Projects” list based on bpiper’s solution with a slight difference. My solution is almost identical to bpiper’s but with a different approach to continue support of the supported interface languages. To do this each supported language file will require to be edited.

Thanks to bpiper for posting your solution.

Solution

1. Edit /taskfreak/include/language/en/freak.php starting at line #15. Add in a new array key/value at any point you desire like so “‘my_projects’ => ‘My Projects’,” (without double quotes), see below for example.

   Note: Each interface language file will be required to be edited if you desire to use them. If you do not do so, you will receive error messages and it may cripple TaskFreak!

   Code – Before

   15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

   // top menu / navigation $GLOBALS['langMenu'] = array ( 'task' => 'Task', 'print_list' => 'Printing version', 'new_todo' => 'New Todo', 'view' => 'View', 'all_projects' => 'All Projects', 'future_tasks' => 'Future Tasks', 'past_tasks' => 'Past Tasks', 'my_tasks' => 'My Tasks', 'all_tasks' => 'All Tasks', 'all_contexts' => 'All Contexts', 'all_users' => 'All Users', 'reload' => 'Reload', 'manage' => 'Manage', 'projects' => 'Projects', 'users' => 'Users', 'preferences' => 'My Profile', 'settings' => 'System Settings', 'login' => 'Login', 'logout' => 'Logout', 'warning' => 'Warning', 'warning_install' => 'Install folder still exists, you should delete it for security purposes' );

   Code – After

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   // top menu / navigation $GLOBALS['langMenu'] = array ( 'task' => 'Task', 'print_list' => 'Printing version', 'new_todo' => 'New Todo', 'view' => 'View', 'all_projects' => 'All Projects', 'future_tasks' => 'Future Tasks', 'past_tasks' => 'Past Tasks', 'my_tasks' => 'My Tasks', 'my_projects' => 'My Projects', 'all_tasks' => 'All Tasks', 'all_contexts' => 'All Contexts', 'all_users' => 'All Users', 'reload' => 'Reload', 'manage' => 'Manage', 'projects' => 'Projects', 'users' => 'Users', 'preferences' => 'My Profile', 'settings' => 'System Settings', 'login' => 'Login', 'logout' => 'Logout', 'warning' => 'Warning', 'warning_install' => 'Install folder still exists, you should delete it for security purposes' );

2. Edit /taskfreak/include/html/header.php at line #214 add “My Projects” link as shown below.
   

   Code Before

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   <div id="rightmenu"> <a href="<?php echo Tzn::concatUrl($_SESSION['linkItems'],'sUser='.$objUser->id); ?>">< ?php echo $langMenu['my_tasks']; ?></a> | <a href="<?php echo Tzn::concatUrl($_SESSION['linkItems'],'sUser=all'); ?>">< ?php echo $langMenu['all_users']; ?></a> | </div>

   Code After

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   <div id="rightmenu"> <a href="<?php echo Tzn::concatUrl($_SESSION['linkItems'],'sUser=myprojects'); ?>">< ?php echo $langMenu['my_projects'];?></a> | <a href="<?php echo Tzn::concatUrl($_SESSION['linkItems'],'sUser='.$objUser->id); ?>">< ?php echo $langMenu['my_tasks']; ?></a> | <a href="<?php echo Tzn::concatUrl($_SESSION['linkItems'],'sUser=all'); ?>">< ?php echo $langMenu['all_users']; ?></a> | </div>

3. Edit /taskfreak/index.php at line #72 as shown below.
   

   Code Before

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   if ($pUser) { $objItemList->addWhere('ii.memberId = \''.$pUser.'\''); $_SESSION['selUser'] = $pUser; $pDefaultUserId = $pUser; } else {

   Code After

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   if($_REQUEST['sUser'] == 'myprojects' && $_SESSION['selUser']){ $objItemList->addWhere('ii.authorId='.$_SESSION['selUser']); } elseif ($pUser) { $objItemList->addWhere('ii.memberId = \''.$pUser.'\''); $_SESSION['selUser'] = $pUser; $pDefaultUserId = $pUser; } else {

Source: My Projects List

I’m trying to determine the difference in minutes between two timestamps. I’m using Pear::Date to do this. The issue comes into play when I noticed that the wrong timezone was being used by Pear::Date, UTC. If I do not use Pear::Date the timezone is set correctly.

I have tried using date_default_timezone_set() and it does set the timezone back, however I feel this shouldn’t be necessary as the default timezone should be used. I have been using date_default_timezone_get() to determine what timezone is being used.

It’s my understanding that Pear::Date uses UTC when it is unable to determine the default timezone. As far as I know I have the default timezone set correctly and with a valid ID (see below). I was able to determine that the timezone changed from my default timezone to UTC after I used Date::setFromDateDiff(). This does not seem right at all.

I have checked the following.

• Pear v1.7.2 stable
• Pear::Date v1.4.7 stable

• php.ini (default timezone) – date.timezone = “Canada/Saskatchewan”
• phpinfo() – Correct configure file being loaded, /var/www/conf/php.ini.
• phpinfo() – Under Date, date/time support is enabled.
• phpinfo() – Default timezone – Canada/Saskatchewan
• phpinfo() – date.timezone - Canada/Saskatchewan / Canada/Saskatchewan

PHP Code Test Case

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require_once("Date.php");
 
$obFirstDate = new Date('20081014155640');
$obSecondDate = new Date(date("YmdHis",time()));
 
$obDateSpan = new Date_Span();
$obDateSpan->setFromDateDiff($obFirstDate, $obSecondDate);
echo (int)$obDateSpan->toMinutes();
echo "<br />".date_default_timezone_get();

Solution – Unknown

Does anyone have any suggestions where to look or what to do to fix this problem?

PHP Example of an if statement

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if($nFoo > 0)
{
   echo "I'm at the work.";
}
else
{
   echo "I'm at home.";
}

PHP Example using the ternary operator

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echo $nFoo > 0 ? "I'm at the work." : "I'm at home.";

The expression (expr1) ? (expr2) : (expr3) evaluates to expr2 if expr1 evaluates to TRUE, and expr3 if expr1 evaluates to FALSE.

Source: Wikipedia on Ternary Operator
Source: PHP Manual: Comparison Operators

Using PHP function intval().

Code example: echo intval(“05″);
Returned value: 5

Using PHP function ltrim().

Code example: echo ltrim(“005″,”0″);
Returned value: 5

Since MySQL v4.1 timestamp and datetime data types are formatted “YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS”. Prior to MySQL v4.1 the timestamp was formatted as YYYYMMDDHHMMSS” and datetime formatted as “YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS”. Refer to MySQL Reference Manual for further details.

The Unix timestamp differs from MySQL. Unix’s timestamp is a integer value of seconds since January 1, 1970. For further explanation of Unix timestamps refer to Wikiepedia or UnixTimestamp.com.

Solutions

In MySQL you can use Unix_Timestamp() function.

Query Example: SELECT Unix_Timestamp(Date_Entered) FROM Foo;

Using PHP you can use strtotime() function.

PHP Example: $nUnixTimestamp = strtotime($nTimestamp);

The MySQL database v4.0.23 is using the default character set of “Latin1″. When the database was created I had no knowledge of character sets other wise it would have been “UTF-8″.
The web pages are using a character set of “UTF-8″.

Problem

Data being queried from a MySQL database that contains French accent characters will not render correctly in the browser even after applying PHP htmlentities().

Example code: $string = htmlentities($string , ENT_QUOTES, “UTF-8″);

Solution

The queried data from the database was inputted using the character set “ISO-8859-1″. I found this out by changing the browser’s character encoding to “Western ISO-8859-1″ and the French accent characters then rendered properly. With the use of PHP iconv() I was able to convert the data from “ISO-8859-1″ to “UTF-8″ character set and the French characters then rendered properly in the browser.

Example code: $string = iconv(“ISO-8859-1″,”UTF-8″,”$string”);

If you are unaware of what MySQL default character set being used, you can run this SQL command “show variables like “%character%” and check your MySQL configuration file. Refer to the MySQL manual for further details.

Example
$form->removeAttribute(‘name’);

Solution

The only solution to this error message and other similar error messages relating to the PHP calendar API requires PHP to be compiled with the calendar extension by adding “–enable-calendar” to the “configure command” as stated in the PHP documentation on the Calendar functions page.

How to Tell if the Calendar Extension is Installed

You can verify weather or not the PHP Calendar extension was compiled at install by using the phpinfo() function. When viewing the output of phpinfo() look under “Configure Command” just below “Build Date” and if you do not see “–enable-calendar” present then all PHP Calendar functions will not work.

Configure Example

./configure –with-mysql=/usr/local –with-mssql=/usr/local –with-apxs –with-zlib-dir=/usr/lib –with-libxml-dir=/usr/local –with-config-file-path=/var/www/conf –with-iconv=/usr/local/bin/iconv –enable-exif –-enable-mbstring –enable-calendar

Here’s my modified version for the solution based on the forum posting. The pfcmail() function can be made to be way more versatile for any use, however for my use it was made to be simple and produce properly formated email messages.

Solution

1. Create a new PHP file called pfcmail.php with the following lines of code.

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   < ?php function pfcmail($szChannel,$szNickname) { $szCurrentDateTime = date('F j, Y @ g:i:sa', time()); $szClientIP = getenv("REMOTE_ADDR"); $szHostName = gethostbyaddr("$szClientIP"); $szServerName = getenv("SERVER_NAME"); $szEmailWebmaster = getenv("SERVER_ADMIN");   $szEmailTo = "Webmaster <$szEmailWebmaster>"; $szMsgHeaders = "From: $szEmailWebmaster\r\n"; $szMsgHeaders .= "X-Mailer: PHP\r\n"; $szMsgHeaders .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n"; $szMsgHeaders .= "Content-type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8"; $szMsgSubject = "[WEB] Chat Login - $szNickname in channel $szChannel at $szCurrentDateTime";   $szMsgBody = "Date\t\t\t\t: $szCurrentDateTime\n"; $szMsgBody .= "Server Name\t\t\t: $szServerName\n"; $szMsgBody .= "Client IP\t\t\t: $szClientIP\n"; $szMsgBody .= "Client Hostname\t\t: $szHostName\n\n";   $szMsgBody .= "Join chat now by going to http://$szServerName/chat/index.php.\n\n";   $szMsgBody .= "---\n"; $szMsgBody .= "Email message auto-generated by PHP mail().";   $nSendEmail = mail($szEmailTo, $szMsgSubject, $szMsgBody, $szMsgHeaders); } ?>

   Note: The extra r, n and t’s should have a \ character before them to produce a carriage return, new line and tab. WordPress appears to remove the character.

3. Make sure to modifiy the code in pfcmail.php for the To, from, subject and body of the email message to your requirements.
4. Save pfcmail.php file into the following path, /src/commands/.
5. Edit /src/commands/nick.class.php at line number 84, just before “return true;” add the following code and save.

6. require_once(dirname(__FILE__).”/pfcmail.php”);
   pfcmail($c->title, $newnick);

You should now be receiving email notifications each time an individual joins chat.

On a OpenBSD v3.7 i386 system running Apache v1.3.29 (not chrooted) with PHP v5.1.4 I upgraded HTML_BBCodeParser from version 1.1 to version 1.2.2 by running at command line “pear upgrade-all”. After the upgrades were complete the web site would not load a web page anymore. I looked at my HTTPD server logs and noticed I was receiving the following error message in error_log file, “[notice] child pid 13449 exit signal Segmentation fault (11)” whenever there was a HTTP request on port 80 or 443 to the web site. I couldn’t understand what the problem could be but then decided to uninstall HTML_BBCodeParser v1.2.2 and re-install HTML_BBCodeParser v1.1 to see if the web site would still function. Indeed the web site did load and function fine. So I decided to uninstall and install each version up to v1.2.2 to see where the breaking point was. As soon as the latest version of HTML_BBCodeParser v1.2.2 is installed the web site stops functioning. I was able to determine that there was something that has changed in v1.2.2 or something I did wrong in the Filters I created and existing filters I altered.

Solution #1

I uninstalled HTML_BBCodeParser then manually removed the directory /usr/local/lib/php/HTML/HTML_BBCodeParser. Then I installed HTML_BBCodeParser v1.2.2 and copied the BBCodeParser.ini example from /usr/local/lib/php/doc/HTML_BBCodeParser/BBCodeParser/example/ to /usr/local/lib/php/HTML/BBCodeParse/. After that the web site functioned as normal again.

Problem #2 – “Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: Empty delimiter.”

However I discovered that when using PHP 5 one has to alter the BBCodeParser.ini file otherwise you will receive the following warning message when trying to load a web page using HTML_BBCodeParser, “Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: Empty delimiter. in /usr/local/lib/php/HTML/BBCodeParser.php on line 354″.

Solution #2

Edit your BBCodeParser.ini and alter the line for the opening tag character and closing tag character to be enclosed by double quotes around the square brackets, [ and ]. Apparently this has been an issue for awhile now, http://pear.php.net/bugs/bug.php?id=2580.

Example After Alteration – BBCodeParser.ini

[HTML_BBCodeParser]

; possible values: a comma seperated list of filters
; comma seperated list of filters to use
filters = Basic,Extended,Links,Images,Lists,Email