Cleaning up my messy code

Here is what I would do (this advice and a buck will buy you a cup of
coffee):

First, I'd take my existing code, look over it and ask, Where am I
doing the same thing over and over? Code that is repetitive is a prime
candidate for using functions or objects. Objects are easier to
maintain for me.

So if your making code on each page to access a MySql database, you can
then decide to make a class to access your database or take a look at
some of the existing classes like PEAR:DB or ADODB that do this for you.

Then I'd look at a template system or use XSLT and CSS (my preference
- ultimate flexibility - WML, RSS,etc...).

So I made a class to return an xml string from a database query
(<record><fieldname>fieldvalue</fieldname></record>). Then each page of
the site becomes a matter of reading an xslt file into a variable,
sending a query and returning an xml string and transforming the xml
into html
The advantage is each page of the site has code that looks like this:


<?php
// includes
require('../includes/clsmakexml.php');
require('../includes/clsReadFile.php');

// sql query
$sql .= " SELECT CS.FirstName, CS.LastName, CS.Firm,
CS.CustomerID, CS.Bio, ";
$sql .= "CI.City, CI.State, CI.ZipCode, CI.PhoneNum, CI.FaxNum,
Ci.email, CI.url ";
$sql .= "\rFROM Customer CS ";
$sql .= "INNER JOIN ContactInfo CI ON CS.CustomerID = CI.CustomerID ";
$sql .= "\rWHERE CS.CustomerID = " . $_GET['CustomerID'];

// convert query to xml string via makexml class
$xmldoc = new makexml("mssql");
$xmldoc->xmlstart('attys');
$xmldoc->xmlmaker($sql);
$xmldoc->xmlEnd();

// read xsl template file via readFile clss
$fileR = new readFile();
$fileR->processFile("../includes/header.inc");
$fileR->processFile("bio.xsl");
$fileR->processFile("../includes/footer.inc");

// prepare xsl transformation
$xmldoc->xslstr = $fileR->contents;
$xmldoc->xslresult = 'result.xml';
$arguments = array('/_xml' => $xmldoc->xmlstr,'/_xsl' =>
$xmldoc->xslstr);

// transform the xml into html
$xh = xslt_create();
$result = xslt_process($xh, 'arg:/_xml', 'arg:/_xsl', NULL,
$arguments);
if ($result) {
print $result;
}
else {
print "Sorry, the xml could not be transformed by the xsl into";
print " the \$result variable the reason is that " . xslt_error($xh)
..
print " and the error code is " . xslt_errno($xh);
}
xslt_free($xh);
?>

This isn't bulletproof but makes code easy to read and maintain for me.
If I need to add a new feature, I just add a new function, method, or
class. If I need something different at the presentation level I just
change the XSLT or , more likely, the CSS.


On Monday, September 29, 2003, at 02:22 PM, Chris wrote:

> I am working on a fairly large scale (for myself anyway) project using
> PHP
> and MySQL. I am victim of teaching myself to program, not separating
> presentation from my code-- all the things that lead to masses of
> spaghetti
> code so atrocious even I can't figure out what I was doing an hour ago.
>
> I'm not looking for an IDE or code generator so much as some practical
> advice for organization and framework when developing a larger app. I
> know
> of PHP Fusebox, having programmed with Cold Fusion fusebox for a
> while, but
> it seems like that might be too much. Maybe I just need a sensical,
> practical approach to application layout. What do you all do? How can I
> learn to be a better PHP programmer in this regard?
>
> c
>
> --
> PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
>