Box is a library and command line application for simplifying the PHAR creation process. [Features include] creating new PHARs with a simple configuration file, add and replace files in existing PHARs, extract existing PHARs, with option to cherry pick files and verify PHAR signatures.

The project is still relatively young but it looks like it's off to a good start. Phar files are a powerful tool to have in a PHP developer's arsenal but developing them can be a pain. Hopefully something like this can make life easier.

The PECL/Cairo library is pretty good at drawing vector graphics (in our opinion, as the developers, at least!), but one thing it's not able to do by itself is draw text with mildly advanced layout. [...] That's because the developers of the Cairo library decided to let another more specialised library handle the job of text layout.

Michael has created a wrapper for Pango in PHP (github) and some sample code that can be used as a test to ensure it's all setup and working. He steps through each part of the image creation and describes what's happening and what each method is doing along the way.

This tool has to do a good bit of database manipulation so I've decided I'll build it in PHP using Zend Framework. I'll be using Zend_Db_Table_Abstract to communicate with the db tables from my project and I'll be creating a model for each table as well to store and manipulate data. I'll be working with lots of tables in the database and many have lots of fields.

Because the component lets you dynamically create PHP code, it can easily be used to create the model classes. Joey includes a link to the code you can use to add it into your own projects.

It's time for the good stuff now. We'll be adding the comments system, a sidebar with widgets and an archive for all the old posts. This will cover all that you need for a simple but well functioning WordPress theme, and hopefully you be able to apply this to all sorts of theming projects.

The give the code to create the sidebar (in their instance, an image from Flickr), handling the comments for each post and make the "archive" section to get to some of the older posts.

I thought that, seeing as this is a programmer community, the people who have not had the privilege to have access to the forums where these things were discussed or access to the code itself might be interested in knowing a bit about the underlying technology and code that powers this website

Some of the technologies they use include the Zend Framework running on a CentOS with PHP5.2. Some of the highlights in the coding process included updates to Zend_Auth, using Zend_Acl for access management, content management and other various packages (like Zend_Feed, Zend_Form, Zend_Db, etc).

• Image creation with PHP - Image Tools
• Image creation with PHP - Text rendering
• Image creation with PHP - Integrating bitmaps
• Image creation with PHP - Gradient rendering
• Image creation with PHP - A first shape
• Image creation with PHP - Formats & Libraries

Each of them can be read separately, but they're all part of a series and make more sense when read together.

The PHP 5 branch of the PHP source code lacks the protection against possible integer overflows inside ecalloc() that is present in the PHP 4 branch and also for several years part of our Hardening-Patch and our new Suhosin-Patch.

It was discovered that such an integer overflow can be triggered when user input is passed to the unserialize() function.

You can get the full details from this advisory release including a recommendation to patch the installation until it is corrected in the current distribution.

In this article, the first of a three-part series, you will be introduced to the basics of creating directors and builder objects with PHP 5. As usual, there will be copious examples to help you quickly start using the builder pattern in your own PHP projects.

Well, to put things in a simple perspective, when the builder pattern is applied, two objects are put into action to create a third one. First, these two objects create a director; as its name suggests, the director controls all aspects of the creation process and determines what pieces and modifications will be introduced into the target object. Finally, a builder is tasked with constructing the third object in question, in accordance with particular specifications. Sounds fairly simple, doesn't it?

They start with a look at starting with the Builder pattern, building a basic XML document to provide the structure for the target object. From that information, they show how to create the object and give a simple class to help direct that object along.