• xhprof 0.9.3 -- Just updating the pecl package to https://github.com/facebook/xhprof/commit/254eb24dcfa763c76c57b472093ebc4b81af2b7d -- Request #16544: Mac port for XHProf (svilen spasov) -- fix #16574: require/require_once not special cased like include/include_once (kannan) -- add a sanity test for sampling mode in xhprof (kannan) -- add support to ignore functions (such as call_user_func) during profiling (mike paleczny) -- fix #16098: suppress notices due to use of FILE_BINARY (kannan) -- add a sanity test for timer (kannan) -- fix for compile error on debian linux (russ)
  
  
• fribidi 1.1 Requires GNU FriBidi version 0.19.1 or later.
  
  
• pq 0.4.0 * Added pqConverterInterface and pqConnection::setConverter() * Added pqResult::desc() and fixed pqStatement::descAsync() * Added serializer for input array params
  
  

On the Symfony blog today Fabien Potencier talks about some small things that matter - some of the smaller updates that have been made to the Symfony 2 framework recently that have helped to make it better and more flexible.

Every new Symfony release tries to brings some small but useful improvements. Let's dive into some of them for Symfony 2.3 (in no particular order).

Things in his list include:

• A text-based output of the exception handling stack trace
• A default configuration for the Serializer component
• The ability to run the framework in a production environment in development
• An update to make debugging configuration parameters easier
• Conversion process of short controller names
• Overload generated code in the bundle bootstrapping code

Check out the post for the rest of the changes on his list and check out the RC1 of Symfony 2.3.0 to see some of them in action.

The PHP Town Hall podcast has posted a new episode - Episode #7: "Web Sockets Are Fast".

Chris Boden joins us to talk about a Ratchet and React. The conversation is basically Ben and Phil asking a bunch of questions about how Ratchet works, pretending we know what is going on while Chris uses lots of words like "concurrency" and "non-blocking". We decide that PHP is web-scale, event-driven programming is not just for NodeJS hipsters, we all take the "Are You a Brogrammer" test and Michael Wales crashes the show half way through like a ninja.

You can listen to this latest episode either through the in-page player or by downloading the episode directly. You can also subscribe to their feed if you'd like the latest shows as they're released.

On 7PHP.com today Khayrattee Wasseem has posted another community interview, this time with Craig Willis the organizer of the Leeds PHP user group in the UK (West Yorkshire).

This is the #1st set of 'Know Thy PHP Usergroup' in an attempt to create more awareness of: what is $this PHP UG about + get to know the leaders/Founders/Community behind it, what is a PHP User Group in general and to personally know all the PHP user goups Around The World - that excites me and I hope you too! This concept is also a good opportunity for new #elePHPants to know about PHP UGs.

They talk some about the group itself as well as some of Craig's thoughts about about leading the group. They talk some about the goals of the group, the usual activities of it and how the meetups are planned. There's also a bit about finding sponsors for the group and how it compares to other groups of the same type.

Andrew Podner has posted the first part of a new series to his site today. He'll be looking at using functional testing to improve quality of the resulting code and full application.

For this week, I wanted to focus on some different types of automated testing other than unit testing that can help developers build more robust applications and improve both the speed and effectiveness of quality assurance. Specifically, this post is going to focus on functional testing. Functional testing is composed of the tests that you write which are from the user's point of view. A functional test is used to perform quality assurance on all or part of an application utilizing the user interface as a pathway to the application.

He gives some examples of functional tests like clicking on buttons, trying a login, checking that the contents of the page are correct. He talks some about the purpose of functional testing and how it differs from unit testing. He suggests the metaphor of a race car - the pit crew would be the "unit testers" and the driver would be the "functional tester", saying whether or not all of the parts of the car are working together as they should for the race. In the next part of the series, he'll talk some about the actual software to automate this process.

• rocker/server (1.1.6) Boilerplate that helps you write RESTful web services on top of Slim framework (https://github.com/victorjonsson/PHP-Rocker#php-rocker)
  
  
• cypresslab/gitelephant (1.0.0-alpha2, 1.0.0-alpha) An abstraction layer for git written in PHP 5.3
  
  
• clubmaster/quickpay (1.1) Quickpay payment gateway.
  
  
• clubmaster/formextra (1.3) ClubMaster form extra.
  
  
• ze-pequeno/pequeno-spotify-module (1.0.1) Zend Framework 2 Module for Spotify Web API
  
  
• slm/locale (v0.0.1) Automatic detection of locales for Zend Framework 2
  
  
• jeboehm/lampcp (0.5.0) The linux apache mysql php control panel
  
  
• ehough/stash (2.0.1) Fork of tedivm/stash compatible with PHP 5.2+
  
  
• ehough/filesystem (1.0.1) Fork of Symfony's Filesystem Component compatible with PHP 5.2+
  
  
• bitgandtter/google-bundle (0.2) Integrate the Google Platform into your Symfony2 application.
  
  
• egulias/email-validator (1.0.0, 1.0.1) A library for validating emails
  
  
• molajo/fieldhandler (v1.0) Molajo FieldHandler: Validates and Filters Input; Escapes and Formats Output
  
  
• slam/tcpdf (6.0.018) TCPDF is a PHP class for generating PDF documents.
  
  
• tecnick.com/tcpdf (6.0.018) TCPDF is a PHP class for generating PDF documents.
  
  
• bmatzner/fontawesome-bundle (3.1.1) FontAwesome Bundle for Symfony2
  
  
• jpiasetz/oanda (0.5.3, 0.5.1, 0.5.2) Oanda PHP wrapper for PHP 5.4+
  
  
• bmatzner/jquery-ui-bundle (1.10.3) jQuery UI Bundle for Symfony2
  
  
• bmatzner/require-bundle (2.1.6) RequireJS Bundle for Symfony2
  
  
• bmatzner/marionette-bundle (1.0.2) MarionetteJS Bundle for Symfony2
  
  
• alexshelkov/simpleacl (2.0.17) Simple Access Control List (ACL) for PHP.
  
  
• bmatzner/lodash-bundle (1.2.1) Lo-Dash Bundle for Symfony2
  
  
• bmatzner/foundation-bundle (4.1.6) ZURB Foundation Bundle for Symfony2
  
  
• bmatzner/mediaelement-bundle (2.11.3) MediaElement.js Bundle for Symfony2
  
  
• tfox/calendar-bundle (1.0.0) This bundle allows to render calendars using Twig engine. Additional parameters might be added for each day, month and week.
  
  
• f21/paradox (1.3.0) Paradox is an elegant Object Document Mananger (ODM) to use with the ArangoDB Document/Graph database server.
  
  
• n98/magerun (1.68.0) Tools for managing Magento projects and installations
  
  
• phpspec/phpspec (2.0.0-BETA4) Specification-oriented BDD framework for PHP 5.3+
  
  
• phpspec/prophecy (v1.0.2) Highly opinionated mocking framework for PHP 5.3+
  
  
• sindriphp/database (0.6.0) Database Component (Bifröst)
  
  
• mv/mv-blog-bundle (v1.2.2-beta) Symfony2 Blog Bundle
  
  
• uam/datatables-bundle (1.0.0) Datatables jquery plugin packaged as a Symfony bundle
  
  
• moriony/silex-mongo-provider (1.1) Mongo service provider for the Silex framwork.
  
  
• uam/aws-bundle (0.1.3, 0.1.2) Symfony bundle to provide a wrapper service around AWS S3
  
  
• uam/propel-s3object-behavior (0.1.8, 0.1.7) A Propel behavior that allows objects to save a file to AWS S3.
  
  
• rocker/facebook-login (1.0.5) Package that makes it possible to authenticate against a PHP-Rocker application using facebook (https://github.com/victorjonsson/PHP-Rocker)
  
  
• zweifisch/f (v0.0.1) building blocks for functional php
  
  

• Net_Socket 1.0.12
  
  
• Net_Socket 1.0.11
  
  

• dudapiotr/zftable (0.0.3) Flexible tool to generate table
  
  
• kamisama/cake-resque (3.3.6) A CakePHP plugin for creating background jobs with Resque
  
  
• inori/banklink (v0.2.4, v0.2.3, v0.2.2, v0.2.1) Banklink is a PHP library that makes integrating various Baltic banks internet services ('bank links') easy, fast and reliable.
  
  
• rocker/google-login (1.0.2, 1.0.0) Package that makes it possible to authenticate against a PHP-Rocker application using google user credentials (https://github.com/victorjonsson/PHP-Rocker)
  
  
• cloudspeedy/fastly-php (1.0.1) Fastly PHP client library
  
  
• titon/io (0.4.2) The Titon IO package provides classes that handle file manipulation and resource bundling.
  
  
• rocker/server (1.1.5) Boilerplate that helps you write RESTful web services on top of Slim framework (https://github.com/victorjonsson/PHP-Rocker#php-rocker)
  
  
• rocker/facebook-login (1.0.4) Package that makes it possible to authenticate against a PHP-Rocker application using facebook (https://github.com/victorjonsson/PHP-Rocker)
  
  
• phpbenchmark/phpbenchmark (1.0.1) Easy to use benchmark toolkit for your PHP-application. This library contains classes for comparing algorithms as well as benchmarking application responses
  
  
• snakano/propel-data-cache-behavior (1.0.0) propel data cache behavior
  
  
• snakano/cache-store (1.0.0) provides a generic way to cache any data
  
  

• kamisama/resque-status (0.0.1) A API for saving a php-resque worker settings and status
  
  
• bear/ace (0.2.0) Ace online editor utility
  
  
• bcen/silex-dispatcher (0.4.1) A Silex plugin
  
  
• klein/klein (v2.0.1, v2.0.0) A lightning fast router for PHP
  
  
• liip/rmt (0.9.6) Release Managment Tool
  
  
• danielmewes/php-rql (1.5.1) A PHP client driver for the RethinkDB query language (ReQL)
  
  
• n98/magerun (1.67.0, 1.66.0) Tools for managing Magento projects and installations
  
  
• smirik/bootstrap-bundle (v2.3.2) Simple bundle which add bootstrap css and js files to project and standard template to the form.
  
  
• adamstipak/nette-rest-route (1.1.0) Rest route for Nette Framework
  
  
• nunzion/composer-devlinks (0.1.0) Enables developers to autoload classes from projects outside the vendor directory. These links can replace projects inside the vendor directory and need not to be committed.
  
  
• entomb/slim-json-api (0.1) Slim extension to implement fast JSON API's
  
  
• pscheit/psc-cms (1.1.3) a content management system ontop of webforge.
  
  
• pihi/industrial (0.4.4) Dependency Injection for PHP 5.3
  
  
• wrep/daemonizable-command (1.0.0) Daemonizable (endless running) commands for Symfony2.
  
  
• yvann/urlify (1.0.0) PHP port of URLify.js from the Django project. Transliterates non-ascii characters for use in URLs.
  
  
• rampage-php/framework (1.0.0-alpha8) Rampage PHP Framework based on Zend Framework 2
  
  
• nunzion/php-common (0.1.0) Commonly used php functions.
  
  
• fritz-payment/jsonrpc (0.1.0) A general JSON RPC client.
  
  
• liip/imagine-bundle (v0.10.0) This Bundle assists in imagine manipulation using the imagine library
  
  
• propel/propel-bundle (1.2.3) Integration of Propel in Symfony2
  
  
• bit3/contao-nested-menu (1.0.3) Nested menus for Contao OpenSource CMS
  
  
• jasonlewis/basset (v4.0.0-BETA1) A better asset management package for Laravel.
  
  

In this recent post over on DZone.com Giorgio Sironi takes a look at the "clone" feature of PHP - what it is, how it can be used and things to watch out for in its use.

Cloning is an operation consisting in the duplication of a data structure, usually to avoid the aliasing problem of having different code modify the same instance in inconsistent ways. In PHP, cloning can be accomplished in multiple ways - and in some cases it can be avoided altogether.

He talks some about how objects are passed around internally during the PHP execution and how you can tell if a function works with data by reference (from the manual). He then looks at the "clone" keyword and what kinds of things are duplicated from an object when it is used. He briefly touches on the "__clone" magic method for solving the "shallow clone" problem and how, possibly, serializing the object might be a better alternative for reproducing the entire object.