php[architect] magazine has released their March 2015 edition of their magazine - DB Migration:

Because databases store the data our applications, they need proper care and feeding too. In “DB Migrations”, David Berube shares what he’s learned to properly design your databases, Harrie Verveer looks at “Database Versioning with Liquibase”, and Patrick Schwisow shows you how to consolidate Doctrine Migrations that have gotten unwieldly.

Other topics included in this month's edition include a "deep dive" into PHP extensions, object oriented Javascript, bitwise math and much more. You can pick up your own copy - either virtual (PDF) or in print - from the php[architect] website.

Matthew Setter has posted the third part of his series looking at the Zend Framework 2's DbSqlSelect component and its use. In this latest (and last) tutorial, he talks more specifically about columns, limiting and ordering.

Welcome to the third and last part in this series, introducing you to working with the ZendDbSqlSelect classes in Zend Framework 2. In part one we looked at building SQL Where clauses using the where related functions, predicates and closures, as well as compound queries. In part 2, we looked at all forms of SQL joins as well as a slightly more esoteric feature of SQL – UNIONS. Here, in part 3, in the words of Coldplay, we’re going back to the start, and looking at the fundamentals.

He looks at three specific elements - the class constructor, the "limit" and "order" functions and the "Expression" class. He includes sample code showing how to create the class - one normally and one bound to a specific table. The next example shows how to define the columns to be selected using the "select" method. Finally, he shows the use of the "Expression" objects to perform SQL operations in the query (like "COUNT").

On the MaltBlue.com blog Matthew Setter has a new post about the ZendDbSql component of Zend Framework 2, specifically related to making easy joins and unions. This is the second part of his series on this component.

In the first part of this series on ZendDbSqlSelect, we jumped the gun a bit and went straight in to looking at building Where clauses. We looked at a number of the predicates that are available to us, such as In, Between and EqualTo and saw just how easy ZendDbSqlSelect makes both building and maintaining queries. In this, the second part, we’re backtracking a bit and looking at Joins and a slightly more esoteric feature of SQL – UNIONs. By the end of today’s tutorial, you’ll be building some pretty good queries that should satisfy most of your daily requirements.

He starts with a look at joins, showing in several code examples the various kinds - inner, outer, left and right (as well as self joins). He then moves on to unions, intersects and excerpts with examples of each.

In response to several other posts lately about the PEAR::DB package in PEAR (and things that could be done to improve it), David Coallier got a bit fed up and shared his opinion - "PEAR::DB is deprecated, got it?"

All new features are made into MDB2 and not DB, the only thing that is being done on DB is security fixes. So MDB2 is first of all, faster, smaller (Because of it's driver and modularity), easier, and has more features (LOB handling, Iterator, etc) and better end-user documentation, quite solid docs indeed.

Of course, the comments of the post are full of people arguing to keep it around and others that agree with David, especially in light of a MDB2 driver for the Zend Framework he mentions.

In response to several other posts lately about the PEAR::DB package in PEAR (and things that could be done to improve it), David Coallier got a bit fed up and shared his opinion - "PEAR::DB is deprecated, got it?"

All new features are made into MDB2 and not DB, the only thing that is being done on DB is security fixes. So MDB2 is first of all, faster, smaller (Because of it's driver and modularity), easier, and has more features (LOB handling, Iterator, etc) and better end-user documentation, quite solid docs indeed.

Of course, the comments of the post are full of people arguing to keep it around and others that agree with David, especially in light of a MDB2 driver for the Zend Framework he mentions.

Going along with the Roadmap update Zend has recently put out about it's Framework, Andi Gutmans has also announced the introduction of more mailing lists to help developers communicate more effectively.

In line with the roadmap email, I'd like to form 8 new mailing lists which will make it easier for people to discuss/participate in subject areas which are of interest to them (actually 7 new ones as docs already exists).

I did think of calling the lists fwdev-* to note them as dev lists but I think it makes more sense to keep them open to the users. I find it very valuable to get users asking questions and commeting on functionality on the dev lists as that's valuable input from the users.

The new mailing lists up and running. They are:

• fw-webservices@
• fw-mvc@
• fw-auth@
• fw-i18n@
• fw-db@
• fw-core@
• fw-formats@

To check out the topics that fall under each category, check out the sections of the roadmap.

Going along with the Roadmap update Zend has recently put out about it's Framework, Andi Gutmans has also announced the introduction of more mailing lists to help developers communicate more effectively.

In line with the roadmap email, I'd like to form 8 new mailing lists which will make it easier for people to discuss/participate in subject areas which are of interest to them (actually 7 new ones as docs already exists).

I did think of calling the lists fwdev-* to note them as dev lists but I think it makes more sense to keep them open to the users. I find it very valuable to get users asking questions and commeting on functionality on the dev lists as that's valuable input from the users.

The new mailing lists up and running. They are:

• fw-webservices@
• fw-mvc@
• fw-auth@
• fw-i18n@
• fw-db@
• fw-core@
• fw-formats@

To check out the topics that fall under each category, check out the sections of the roadmap.

On CodePoets.co.uk today, a new tutorial introduces you to the PEAR DB package, giving you a howto guide on performing simple queries with its functionality.

They list a few reasons why one might want to use the PEAR DB package over the normal PHP database functions before they get into the examples. There are four examples - making the connection, querying the database, what to do to avoid SQL injections, and updating your database with prepared statements.

On CodePoets.co.uk today, a new tutorial introduces you to the PEAR DB package, giving you a howto guide on performing simple queries with its functionality.

They list a few reasons why one might want to use the PEAR DB package over the normal PHP database functions before they get into the examples. There are four examples - making the connection, querying the database, what to do to avoid SQL injections, and updating your database with prepared statements.