PHP uses the same command as *nix systems when dealing with changing permissions for files. These commands are particularly useful in situations where PHP runs as a different user on the system, which is common when PHP is compiled as an Apache user.

She includes a basic syntax for each of them and how one (chmod) could be used in an example of file creation.

Many functions within the PHP codebase relied upon a universally working getcwd() [C] call to expand paths and to find out where a script is being executed. In particular, Solaris does not assume that getcwd() is a privilege that should be granted to users in directories that don't have 'r' (read) permission, even if it has 'x' (execute) permissions. [...] Under Linux, getcwd() behaves normally but under Solaris, getcwd() does not work with the --x restrictive permissions.

He does note, happily, that this issue is cleared up with an upgrade to PHP 5.2.5 as soon as possible. He had code snippets included in the post so you can test your installation for the problem too.

My first task at my new job was a simple enough one. All our customers have a review site that has a list of contacts. The file was contacts.html and it was just a static html file.

Since there are already 100s of sites using the static html, I wanted to avoid any kind of complex migration or external database. I decided to give SQLite a try since the db files are so portable. Each site would have it's own database with a single contacts table. Simple right? Let me go over all the problems I ran into.

He starts off with the fact that SQLite 3 doesn't work with PHP (different client drivers in PHP) and that PHP doesn't like SQLite 2 all that much either. His third and final experience? That SQLite isn't the brightest when it comes to working with directory permissions.

Reading and writing to files can be useful if you do not require the storing of important data, such as a web counter. I must warn you though, that this method of storage should not be used to store passwords and other critical information, as it is not safe. Here we will discuss how to handle files and directories in PHP, specifically, how to create, read and write them.

They start off with a look at file permissions on both Unix and Windows systems ot give you an idea of what problems they could cause. Then, it's on to the actual files themselves - for this part, though, they only look at reading them in and working with their contents.

Bitmasking is a very useful method to emulate Unix-style file permissions (read/write/execute for example). What's nice about a PHP implementation is that you can configure your own bitmasks and use them for any kind of permissions in your scripts and applications. The implementation is relatively simple as well.

They start by defining a few of the permission levels (add/delete/denied) in PHP constants before showing the bitMask() function you can use to check a user's permissions. They also include some simple pseudo-code to show how it's used. For more information, check out the complete article here.

The first post makes a point about bug reports and testing before sending. He recieved a report that the PEAR installer (go-pear) was broken when safemode is on. Fortunately, it turned out to be a lack of knowledge on the user's part and just being a matter of permissions.

Post number two talks about the newly released version of the PEAR installer, including a new version of the Web frontend (0.5.1). The new installer version corrects a bug where the server will have to request channel servers for every command over and over again - all due to the lack of a cache directory.

You can grab this latest update for the installer here and for the web frontend here