In a recent blog post Chris Hartjes is asking the community (more specifically the CakePHP community) for their opinions on his thoughts for a deployment method for CakePHP apps.

While I really prefer to use tools like this for deployment, I understand that not everyone wants to mess with standalone programs and configuration files. I've been asked before about Cake-specific deployment techniques, so I figure the easiest way is to see about adding a task to the Cake console.

His idea consists of two new commands - "cake deploy config" and "cake deploy" to make it simple to set up and directly deploy applications without having to go to outside software.

On the PhPL33t blog, there's a guide for automating the creation of email addresses with the Plesk administration application:

In 2003 I wrote "Plesk Auto Email", the first fully funtional Plesk email automation suite. Now, I am going to show you how to do it. You will need a dedicated server with Linux, Plesk 7.5 and higher, php5, mysql5, and root access. This will show you how to code the auto creation, I am not going into deletions and edits at this time because I don't have all night to blog.

Included are the database table to store the commands in, the PHP script to create the commands (the integration into the other piece of software) and the PHP cron script that looks in the command table and executes each as it goes through.

Sometimes, you just can't get to a web browser to look up something from the PHP manual (or might not want to). Another option is the command line and in this new post to the SitePoint PHP blog, Troels Knak-Nielsen shows you a method for getting the entire manual entry right at your prompt neatly formatted.

One thing, I missed with either of the two [other solutions mentioned], was the ability to see the entire manual entry. It's quite often, that the manual actually holds useful information (Who'd known that!), so I find myself using www.php.net a lot. Or I did, until I decided to do something about it. Now, shell-scripting isn't what I spent most of my time on, so it's not with out a bit of pride, that I present to you phpm two-oh.

Most of the rest of the post is his bash script ready top cut and paste as well as some simple instructions on getting it working. (An emacs bonus is also included - a method for binding the script to a key to act on the current word.)

Richard Davey points out two new interesting PHP commands he discovered when looking through the graphics (GD) section of the manual - imagegrabscreen and imagegrabwindow.

Upon further investigation both of these commands can be used to take screen shots of the desktop of your server, or any applications window (such as a web browser). Both commands are listed as being "Windows only" and also possibly only in CVS, but I found both of them are in the 5.2.3 standard release and compile without error. However at the moment neither appear to actually do anything other than return fully black images

In testing the functionality, though, his only results were black screens and images instead of the expected image results.

On the Hauser & Wenz blog today, Christian Wenz points out a patched version of the interactive command line PHP client, phpa to work on a Mac OS X machine - phpa-norl.

phpa is an interactive command line shell for PHP by David Phillips. Stefan Fischerlander, usually known as a SEO expert and Perl admirer, has patched phpa for Mac OS X and Windows (the default builds theredo not seem to support a feature required by phpa). The result: phpa-norl. Stefan successfully ran this on OS X, and I could confirm that it runs on Windows, as well

He also mentions some features of the client including a history feature that makes looking back through previous commands simple.

On the phpaddiction site today, there's part two of their tutorial looking at URL routing with PHP (started here in Part One).

With the foundation of the routing in place (from part one), they move on to bigger and better things:

• assign responsibilities (what needs to be accomplished)
• creating a standard command object
• interpreting the URLs and the parameters passed in it
• using this information to dispatch the correct commands

There's code examples through out to illustrate each point as well as one main one at the end to show how to put it all into action. Their script reads in the URL and sends the command along to the CommandDispatcher - check out this example page to see it in action.

The phpaddiction website has posted the first part of a series today covering URL routing with PHP (commonly used by frameworks to route requests through a centralized location.

Most PHP frameworks use some variation of the front controller pattern to centralize common code and logic. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. I am going to ignore those for now. In fact the first part of this series will explore a simple procedural URL routing method that contains many of the disadvantages. In later articles we will build upon this basis and address the disadvantages.

He walks through the steps to get things set up - working with mod_rewrite, creating the "entry point" for your application, and finally, how to execute a command based on the request's action.

DevShed steps into the final part of their series looking at Command objects in PHP5 with this new tutorial just posted - "Using Self-Saving Objects with Command Objects in PHP 5".

I'm going to extend the creation and use of command objects to use the pattern in a more helpful fashion. Essentially, I'm going to explain how to utilize command classes for defining and handling self-saving objects, that is objects capable of storing a copy of themselves on a database, text file, etc.

They start by defining the core modules and classes for the creation of the objects. They build the other functionality on top of that, creating the save and load mechanisms. The wrap things up and add a few more small bits of functionality before giving a real-life example of the pattern and code in action.

DevShed is moving right along with their series concerning Command objects with this new article showing even more examples of how they're used.

Turning special attention to this second article of the series, I'll develop a few more hands-on examples concerning the pattern in question, thus you can reaffirm the concepts learned in the preceding installment.

They start off by building an array command class to act as a base for the rest of the tutorial. They make two more command classes to point to the commands to be issued (lowercase or reverse a string). Next up is the commanded class to handle the actions themselves. Finally, they plug it all together and show a complete example, including usage.

DevShed starts off a new series today in this first part of the series looking at the creation of and working with command objects in PHP5.

In this article, the first part of a series, you'll learn the basics of applying the command pattern with PHP 5. As always, plenty of hands-on examples are included.

A command class involves having a commander and the implementers that work together to do things like (what they illustrate) manipulating strings. They create the commander class and give a simple example of a subclass that implements it. They create a few more and tie them all into a master class to work together. Finally, they give an illustration of the code in action - uppercasing a string and inverting it to read backwards, then output.