FAQ

[Posted to comp.lang.php and CC mailed to Scott Orsburn]

http://www.kaomso.com/documents/phpfaq.html

Some of the questions you answer in your FAQ are, how shall
I put it, not so frequently asked. That's not to say they
shouldn't be treated in a FAQ, but priority, I suggest,
ought to be given to the more frequently asked ones. Thus,
to help you develop your FAQ, I have composed a list. I
hope the forming of questions and answers will be a peer-
reviewed process which everybody here can take part in.

1. register globals
2. 'headers already sent'
3. @ before function calls
4. address of referrer
5. To GET or to POST
6. HTML emails
7. connect to another computer
8. tutorials, books, and websites
9. installation
10. date manipulation
11. PDF file creation

There are, of course, more.

I look forward to the next update.

--
Jock

I noticed that Message-ID:
<MPG.1c8bf9cf7b799b4f98986c@News.Individual.NET> from John Dunlop
contained the following:

>1. register globals
>2. 'headers already sent'
>3. @ before function calls
>4. address of referrer
>5. To GET or to POST
>6. HTML emails
>7. connect to another computer
>8. tutorials, books, and websites
>9. installation
>10. date manipulation
>11. PDF file creation

I'd put editors and IDEs at 3

--
Geoff Berrow (put thecat out to email)
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the committee's, mine.
Simple RFDs http://www.ckdog.co.uk/rfdmaker/

I noticed that Message-ID:
<MPG.1c8c2d75c3d3e55298986d@News.Individual.NET> from John Dunlop
contained the following:

>Yes, that is a frequently discussed topic. (Sorry, apart
>from the first two items, that list wasn't meant to be in
>order.)
>
>Any more, anyone? Some questions on MySQL perhaps, and on
>the GD library.

Sessions and cookies
Confusion with client side programming
email address validation
How can I learn to write a full blown CMS in five minutes
Why won't x work (without posting code)
Why won't this work (posting too much code)
Will you write this for me (or words to that effect)

More as I think of them

--
Geoff Berrow (put thecat out to email)
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the committee's, mine.
Simple RFDs http://www.ckdog.co.uk/rfdmaker/

Geoff Berrow wrote:

> I noticed that Message-ID:
> <MPG.1c8bf9cf7b799b4f98986c@News.Individual.NET> from John Dunlop
> contained the following:
>
> >1. register globals
> >2. 'headers already sent'
> >3. @ before function calls
> >4. address of referrer
> >5. To GET or to POST
> >6. HTML emails
> >7. connect to another computer
> >8. tutorials, books, and websites
> >9. installation
> >10. date manipulation
> >11. PDF file creation
>
> I'd put editors and IDEs at 3

Yes, that is a frequently discussed topic. (Sorry, apart
from the first two items, that list wasn't meant to be in
order.)

Any more, anyone? Some questions on MySQL perhaps, and on
the GD library.

--
Jock

"John Dunlop" <usenet+2004@john.dunlop.name> wrote in message
news:MPG.1c8bf9cf7b799b4f98986c@News.Individual.NE T...
> [Posted to comp.lang.php and CC mailed to Scott Orsburn]
>
> http://www.kaomso.com/documents/phpfaq.html
>
> Some of the questions you answer in your FAQ are, how shall
> I put it, not so frequently asked. That's not to say they
> shouldn't be treated in a FAQ, but priority, I suggest,
> ought to be given to the more frequently asked ones. Thus,
> to help you develop your FAQ, I have composed a list. I
> hope the forming of questions and answers will be a peer-
> reviewed process which everybody here can take part in.
>
> 1. register globals
> 2. 'headers already sent'
> 3. @ before function calls

hey, what _is_ with that @? i couldnt find the manual page for it.



> 4. address of referrer
> 5. To GET or to POST
> 6. HTML emails
> 7. connect to another computer
> 8. tutorials, books, and websites
> 9. installation
> 10. date manipulation
> 11. PDF file creation
>
> There are, of course, more.
>
> I look forward to the next update.
>
> --
> Jock

On 2005-02-28, juglesh <juglesh@nospamRadioKDUG.com> wrote:
> hey, what _is_ with that @? i couldnt find the manual page for it.

<http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.operators.errorcontrol.php>

--
Cheers
- Jacob Atzen

juglesh wrote:

> hey, what _is_ with that @?

That's a good suggestion for the question. So we have the
question

'What is with that @?'

And, lifted straight from the Manual, the answer:

PHP supports one error control operator: the at sign (@).
When prepended to an expression in PHP, any error messages
that might be generated by that expression will be ignored.

If the track_errors feature is enabled, any error message
generated by the expression will be saved in the variable
$php_errormsg. This variable will be overwritten on each
error, so check early if you want to use it.

Note: The @-operator works only on expressions. A simple
rule of thumb is: if you can take the value of something,
you can prepend the @ operator to it. For instance, you can
prepend it to variables, function and include() calls,
constants, and so forth. You cannot prepend it to function
or class definitions, or conditional structures such as if
and foreach, and so forth.

Note: The "@" error-control operator prefix will not disable
messages that are the result of parse errors.

Warning

Currently the "@" error-control operator prefix will even
disable error reporting for critical errors that will
terminate script execution. Among other things, this means
that if you use "@" to suppress errors from a certain
function and either it isn't available or has been mistyped,
the script will die right there with no indication as to
why.

> i couldnt find the manual page for it.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/languag...rorcontrol.php

--
Jock

"John Dunlop" <usenet+2004@john.dunlop.name> wrote in message
news:MPG.1c8bf9cf7b799b4f98986c@News.Individual.NE T...
> [Posted to comp.lang.php and CC mailed to Scott Orsburn]
>
> http://www.kaomso.com/documents/phpfaq.html
>
> Some of the questions you answer in your FAQ are, how shall
> I put it, not so frequently asked. That's not to say they
> shouldn't be treated in a FAQ, but priority, I suggest,
> ought to be given to the more frequently asked ones. Thus,
> to help you develop your FAQ, I have composed a list. I
> hope the forming of questions and answers will be a peer-
> reviewed process which everybody here can take part in.
>
> 1. register globals
> 2. 'headers already sent'
> 3. @ before function calls
> 4. address of referrer
> 5. To GET or to POST
> 6. HTML emails
> 7. connect to another computer
> 8. tutorials, books, and websites
> 9. installation
> 10. date manipulation
> 11. PDF file creation
>
> There are, of course, more.
>
> I look forward to the next update.

Good idea, John. Since the regulars of this group actually answer questions
frequently, we know what should be on the list.

I wonder if PDF creation is worthy of 11. It seems people ask about file
download more often. I would nominate character encoding ahead of PDF too.

Question 7 could be broken up into a number of more specific ones. "How to
get a web page?" is fairly often asked. "How to post a form?" is too.

Chung Leong wrote:

> Good idea, John. Since the regulars of this group actually answer questions
> frequently, we know what should be on the list.

I'm quite happy for Scott Orsburn to host and maintain the
FAQ, but its development must involve this newsgroup. After
all, it can hardly be called the comp.lang.php FAQ if
nothing in it originated here.

> I wonder if PDF creation is worthy of 11. It seems people ask about file
> download more often. I would nominate character encoding ahead of PDF too.

Those are two issues which should rank high on the list.

Should questions that are strictly off-topic, or at least
better dealt with in another group, be treated in a c.l.php
FAQ? I reckon if they're frequently asked here, but dealt
with in another FAQ, then a pointer should suffice.

> Question 7 could be broken up into a number of more specific ones. "How to
> get a web page?" is fairly often asked. "How to post a form?" is too.

Good.

Keep 'em coming! Hopefully Scott will read this thread.

--
Jock

"John Dunlop" <usenet+2004@john.dunlop.name> wrote in message
news:MPG.1c8d9f9c28108c28989878@News.Individual.NE T...
> Should questions that are strictly off-topic, or at least
> better dealt with in another group, be treated in a c.l.php
> FAQ? I reckon if they're frequently asked here, but dealt
> with in another FAQ, then a pointer should suffice.

If it's frequently asked here, I guess we should at least list the question.

I wonder if it wouldn't be a better idea to keep the list in the newgroup
itself and mirror it on a web site. As you said, the answers needs to be
peer-reviewed. And no one person knows everything. Maybe each of us should
just grab a question and start a thread. At least that would get us the raw
info. I can start.