Hey, my first Mac Application! (which can hardly be called an App at all)…

This is a Mac OS X droplet for PEAR developers that run Chiara_PEAR_Server. This little droplet just takes in your PEAR Package .tgz and it will release it to Chiara_PEAR_Server.

Just drop your package.tgz onto the droplet, the script examines the .tgz, discovers the channel name it should be released to, prompts for your PEAR channel handle and password and saves the release to the server.
Note: It assumes your admin.php file is located at http://pear.examplechannel.com/admin.php

A very targeted audience, but none-the-less, a handy little droplet I use to deploy releases.

Source is at svn.saltybeagle.com.

This was built using Platypus, CocoaDialog, and my Salty_PEAR_Server_RemoteReleaseDeployer.

I recently finished a book on the PEAR installer written by Greg Beaver. The book itself is an excellent read for anyone who develops installable PHP libraries or applications, and one I would highly recommend for anyone interested in building small to large PHP web applications.

Throughout the book, Greg demonstrates the complex features of the PEAR installer and package description file (package.xml) to guide you through understanding methods of distributing, installing, and maintaining PHP (and other) projects. The book is filled with real world examples and working applications from the guy who (seriously) ‘wrote the book’ on the PEAR installer.

To anyone who is building distributed PHP applications or reusable libraries, this book is a must have for understanding release deployment strategies and how they are managed with powerful ease. The author knows his stuff, and has used every one of the examples within real word applications. The book has everything from “Hello World” installable applications to a full blown source code repository and distribution system through PEAR channels.
With the book you will have all of the necessary information to build and maintain your complex PHP applications and easily distribute them across many servers, clients, or the open source community.

If you’re at the point in your application development where the unzip-and-go distribution method has reached its limit (typically the first bug after the first zip), the time has come to start building installable PEAR packages and to take advantage of all the capabilities the PEAR installer offers.

Despite maintaining my own PEAR channel server (pear.unl.edu) for over a year now, I still found plenty of information to continue the ease with which the PEAR installer offers. So even if you are an experienced PEAR developer, the book is still a good read and shelf reference.

I highly recommend the book, check it out.

PEAR Installer Manifesto by Gregory Beaver

I updated the PHP API interface to the W3’s html validator with two new methods:

validateFile($file)

validateFragment($file)

The two methods allow you to validate a local file which is uploaded to the validator, or a string of html code.

Test it out or comment on the PEAR proposal.
Download Services_W3C_HTMLValidator
Comment @ PEAR Proposal for “Services_W3C_HTMLValidator”

I’ve been working on some ways to automate release deployment to my PEAR Channel Servers (pear.unl.edu, pear.saltybeagle.com) running Chiara_PEAR_Server.
Right now I have scripts that automatically create the package.xml file using PFM2 and the package tgz files but uploading the release was still a manual process.
The process isn’t that complicated, you log in to the channel server, and upload a file…. the server handles the rest (haha, so punny).

So finally I got friendly with HTTP_Request and wrote a simple class/script to remotely release a pear package to a Chiara_PEAR_Server.

Now it’s even easier to release early, release often.

<?php
/**
 * sample usage of the Salty_PEAR_Server_RemoteReleaseDeployer
 */

require_once 'Salty/PEAR/Server/RemoteReleaseDeployer.php';

$d = new Salty_PEAR_Server_RemoteReleaseDeployer();

$d->adminuri = 'http://pear.saltybeagle.com/admin.php';
$d->username = 'adminhandle';
$d->password = '1234';

if ($d->deployRelease('/home/bbieber/workspace/Salty_PEAR_Server_RemoteReleaseDeployer/Salty_PEAR_Server_RemoteReleaseDeployer-0.0.1.tgz')) {
    echo 'Success!';
} else {
    echo 'Something went terribly wrong.';
}

So what the heck, I made it into a PEAR package.

Salty_PEAR_Server_RemoteReleaseDeployer

Hooray for PEAR Channels!

My personal PEAR channel server has just been set up at http://pear.saltybeagle.com/.

The first task was a rewrite of the Chiara_PEAR_Server post-install scripts to use MDB2_Schema, and some other small changes to get things running.

This is the second channel server I’ll be managing, and this one will be the personal companion to my work PEAR Channel Server http://pear.unl.edu/.
I’ll use this to put out small simple packages I frequently use at home, as well as testing for my help on the Chiara PEAR Channel Server.

Yea for PEAR Channels.

I’ve finally finished setting up a PEAR Channel for UNL using Chiara_PEAR_Server.

http://pear.unl.edu/

The process is quite complex, at least with the current state of things. Greg Beaver has built a sample PEAR Server installable using PEAR.

The simple way to set up a PEAR Server using available packages should be:

sudo pear channel-discover pear.chiaraquartet.net
sudo pear install -f –alldeps chiara/Chiara_PEAR_Server
sudo pear run-scripts chiara/Chiara_PEAR_Server

Then answer all the questions and it should create the Database, Tables, Admin user login, and write out a file to your document root.

In fact there is a ‘Tutorial’ out there by Tobias Schlitt that basically states exactly that. But I had some trouble along the way.

Changes:

360d359
< return false;
361a361
> return $a;
381c381
< if (!$this->lastversion) {
---
> //if (!$this->lastversion) {
400c400,401
< $dbo->channel = $answers['name'];
---
> $dbo->channel = $this->channel;
404c405
< $dbo->channel = $answers['name'];
---
> $dbo->channel = $this->channel;
412c413
< }
---
> //}
417a419
> /*
420a423
> */
616,617c619,620
< $phpdir = str_replace('\\', '/', 'C:\php5\pear');
< $datadir = str_replace('\\', '/', 'C:\php5\pear\data');
---
> $phpdir = str_replace('\\', '/', '/usr/local/php5/lib/php');
> $datadir = str_replace('\\', '/', '/usr/local/php5/lib/php/data');


With those fixes, I was finally able to get Chiara_PEAR_Server working.