PHP - BlogFlock

Using the 1Password CLI in a script - Rob Allen

2025-07-08T09:00:00.000Z

I'm currently writing a script that notarises a macOS CLI app which needs to access a password. Rather than put it in an environment variable, I thought I'd use the 1Password CLI. This is the first time I've used it, so these are my notes.

The 1Password CLI tool is call op. I installed it via Homebrew with:

brew install 1password-cli

Sign in

You need to sign in.

op signin

As I have multiple accounts as various clients have shared access to specific vaults, it asks me which account I want to sign in. To save this step, you can set the OP_ACCOUNT environment variable:

export OP_ACCOUNT=my.1password.com

Alternatively, use the --account parameter.

You get a dialog box where for me, I use TouchID to sign in.

op signin is idempotent so is a no-op if the Terminal is already signed in.

Access data

There are multiple ways to retrieve the data from a 1Password item.

`op item get`

Use op item get "<item>" --field "<fieldname>" to get a specific field. e.g

op item get "Apple App Notarisation" --field "username"

The <item> can be the name of the item or its id. e.g. something like dajka2z5l57m4p43s6bapd3eo4

Note, that for a password, you also need to pass in --reveal.

As I'm writing a script, I assign to a variable:

APPLE_ID=$(op item get "Apple App Notarisation" --field username)
APP_SPECIFIC_PASSWORD=$(op item get "Apple App Notarisation" --field password --reveal)
TEAM_ID=$(op item get "Apple App Notarisation" --field team_id)

Alternatively, you can get back multiple fields in one go by providing a list of common separated fields:

FIELDS=$(op item get "Apple App Notarisation" --fields username,password,team_id --reveal)
IFS=',' read -r APPLE_ID APP_SPECIFIC_PASSWORD TEAM_ID <<< "$FIELDS"

`op read`

You can also use the read parameter which takes a URL-style path:

op read op://<vault>/<item>/<field>

Use op vault list to view the list of vault names and you don't need --reveal for passwords.

For my case, I can use:

APPLE_ID=$(read "op://Private/Apple App Notarisation/username")
APP_SPECIFIC_PASSWORD=$(op read "op://Private/Apple App Notarisation/password")
TEAM_ID=$(op read "op://Private/Apple App Notarisation/team_id")

Format as JSON

You can also get the entire item in JSON using:

op item get "Apple App Notarisation" --format json

Then use jq to extract what you need. e.g to print the username and password you could do:

op item get "Apple App Notarisation" --format json | jq -r '
  .fields[] | select(.label=="username" or .label=="password") | "\(.label): \(.value)"
'

That's it

That's it. Very simple to put into a script and keep my password secure.

Infinite loops in PHP - Exakat

2025-07-03T17:58:12.000Z

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Infinite loops in PHP

Sometimes, they are demonized, and sometimes, they are useful. Infinite loops come in a variety of options in PHP, so let’s put them neatly on a shelf, with all theirs variations.

Classic `while (true)`

To make an infinite loop, the most simple is to take a loop, and make it unconditional. The poster child for this is while (true).

<?php
  $i = 0;
  while (true) {
     echo ++$i.PHP_EOL;
  }
?>

Using `do...while(true)`

Obviously, do...while can do the same than while, but it is seldom mentionned anywhere. Indeed, do...while is roughly used 10 times less than while.

The main difference is that the loop will be executed at least one, but with infinite loop, what differences does this make?

<?php
  $i = 0;
  do {
     echo ++$i.PHP_EOL;
  } while (true);
?>

With `for (;;)`

Another big star of the infinite loops is the empty for(). Here, the loop uses 3 expressions, which are initialization, terminaison and increment. Usually, removing terminaison or increment lead both to infinite loop.

In the end for (;;) is a lot more readable.

<?php
  $i = 0;
  for (;;) {
      echo ++$i.PHP_EOL;
  }

  for ($i = 0;;) {
      echo ++$i.PHP_EOL;
  }

  for ($i = 0;;++$i) {
      echo $i.PHP_EOL;
  }

?>

Using a Generator with `foreach()`

Let’s move to foreach(). This one is naturally bounded: foreach() reads all the values in the provided source. This means that no source build on an array can be infinite: PHP will never build an infinite array before running out of memory.

So, we can use a generator. Let’s see how this works:

<?php

  function foo() {
    $i = 0;
    while (true) {
        yield $i++;
    }
  }

  foreach (foo() as $i) {
    echo $i . PHP_EOL;
  }
?>

To be honest, this is a bit cheating. There is a hidden while(true) hidden in the generator, which is actually creating the infinite loop. Let’s see if we can do better.

Using an inifinite Generator with `foreach()`

To get rid of the while(true) in the generator, we can rely on our good old friend yield from. While yield emits one value, yield from can do the same from an array, or another generator. We just need to get an infinite number of generators.

Or, we can use the same one, and pass it an argument. It is lesser known that generators can take arguments, but this works. Here, the second generator is initialized with the previous last value. This builds an infinite recursion.

<?php

  function goo($i = 0) {
    yield $i;
    yield from goo($i + 1);
  }

  foreach (goo() as $i) {
    echo $i . PHP_EOL;
  }
?>

Compared to the previous examples, it certainly less efficient, as the recursive calls are creation nested execution contexts. We might exhaust the memory before reaching the infinite…. (sic).

Infinite `foreach()` by itself

One trick of foreach() is that it works on a copy of the initial array. This is a default security to make loops finite. But, foreach() also ensures that all the keys of the source array are actually used.

So, when the foreach() works with references, it actually switches to using the original array, as it may have to updates its values. Then, it runs over all the keys, but now, the keys may be changed by writing again in the same array. The trick is to create only new keys in the source array.

<?php
  $array = [1];
  
  foreach ($array as &$value) {
    $array[] = $value + 1;
    echo $value . PHP_EOL;
  }
?>

And also, to start with one value in the array, at least. Otherwise, PHP skips the whole loop.

Using `goto`

We could not avoid mentioning goto as a great tool to build infinite loops. After all, all the loops above are built on top of a hidden goto.

<?php
  $i = 0;
  start:
    echo ++$i.PHP_EOL;
    goto start;
?>

Just don’t tell anyone I mentionned it, there are goto-haters in the wild.

Using a Recursive Function

Finally, it is possible to skip entirely the loops by relying on recursive functions. Just skip the terminating condition.

We already ran into a variation of this, with the recursive generator. It was not the yield that was critical, but the recursion.

<?php

function loop($i = 0) {
    echo ++$i . PHP_EOL;
    loop($i + 1);
}

loop();

?>

Infinite loop, the sky is the limit

Infinite loops are useful, with indefinite waiting loops, such as event loops. This is when there is no limit to what may happen, so looping again and again is important.

In the other cases, it is better to know how to write an infinite loop. Not to use it, but very well to avoid running it in production.

The post Infinite loops in PHP appeared first on Exakat.

Accessing my printer's web app remotely via Tailscale - Rob Allen

2025-07-01T09:00:00.000Z

We have an HP all-in-one scanner and printer that is on our local network. Recently, I was away from home and needed to reconfigure the scanning settings for unimportant reasons.

Usually, when I'm not in the office, I use Tailscale to connect back to machines as required, but the printer isn't running Tailscale, so it's built-in web app isn't directly available. To solve this problem, I set up Tailscale subnet route on the Linux box I have in the office.

As this is Linux box, it was easy enough to SSH into it and I ran:

sudo tailscale set --advertise-routes=192.168.220./24

I can't remember why our local network uses the 192.168.220.0 range; I suspect it's related to a client's VPN config being overbearing, before I started jailing such clients in a VM.

The linux box now knows about the subnet route. To enable it, head over the machines tab of the Tailscale admin, find the machine in question and click the "…" button to find the "Edit route settings" item to authorise it.

Once this was done, Chrome on my remote Mac could access the printer's web app on https://192.168.220.24 and I did the admin required remotely.

I'm unclear if there'll be any issues leaving this route enabled all the time, as issue 1227 implies that everything local might get routed via my Linux box, so I disabled it after use and will enable it as an when I need it.

FIxing Linux Tailscale exit node routing - Rob Allen

2025-06-24T09:00:00.000Z

I run a Tailscale network so that remote computers can access local services. I also have a Linux box at home on that network that advertises itself as an exit node and recently noticed that it wasn't working.

I had some time recently to sit down and work out what was going on. My initial suspicion was that it was DNS related as a cursory search brought up lots of results related to DNS. However, some quick tests with nslookup and dig showed that DNS was correctly resolving, so it seemed to be a routing issue.

Further searching led me to realise that my Linux box needs to masquerade the traffic. This can be done using:

sudo iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o {network interface} -j MASQUERADE

I used ifconfig to look up my network interface which was enp3s0 and then all was well.

I connected my Mac to the exit node from a remote location and could browse the web with my remote IP address correctly set to my home's IP address.

Given that this was working, I'm unclear what has changed such that this setting needed configuring. I have found issue 15708 which may be related so potentially a future Tailscale update will solve this. I don't rebook this box often, so maybe I set this flag before and forgot?

I've written it up here now though, so I can find it again if I need it!

Discover Junie for PhpStorm: A Game-Changing AI Coding Agent for PHP Development - PhpStorm : The IDE that empowers PHP developers | The JetBrains Blog

2025-06-23T09:20:03.000Z

With the release of Junie, the AI coding agent by JetBrains, PhpStorm has entered the realm of agentic IDEs. Now, the PhpStorm IDE doesn’t just provide classical developer productivity tools and AI assistance features, but can also do massive amounts of work for PHP developers autonomously.

Unlike other coding agent plugins, Junie is native to PhpStorm, which means it uses PhpStorm’s core features, such as source code navigation, project structure navigation, Search Everywhere, and code inspections to plan and execute multistep tasks and supervise the outcome.

You can install Junie like any other PhpStorm plugin and open it in the IDE by clicking the Junie icon on the right-hand sidebar.

In this blog post, we’ll follow Junie doing its work and see how it fits into your familiar PhpStorm workflow, while kicking off a whole new way of writing code.

Starting with a clean Laravel project

Let’s start with a clean Laravel project. There’s nothing here but the defaults, and what I want to do is add some functionality to it. So my prompt is:

Implement CRUD actions to manage books via web forms, also create and run a seeder to add 10 books into the database, write tests, and execute them. Use the Tailwind CSS form component library.

💡Tip: To avoid follow-up clarifications where possible, provide Junie with detailed guidelines and instructions in the initial prompt. This helps minimize the number of requests sent to LLMs and optimize the token usage, which means you’re left with a higher JetBrains AI quota!

💡Tip: Select the Think More/Smarter checkbox to give Junie extra time to run and deliver deeper, more insightful results.

Watching Junie work

When I run the prompt, Junie starts by creating a plan and then follows the proposed plan step by step, stopping at terminal commands for user confirmation.

As you can see, Junie is pretty transparent with what it does and which files it searches for, opens, or edits, reporting on what exactly is being performed at each step along the way.

While Junie is running, you can open Junie’s terminal to see the CLI command currently executed by the agent and the complete output history. You can even interact with the terminal while Junie is running some of the commands.

When Junie is done, you can double-click the changed or added file to open it in PhpStorm’s diff viewer, locate and open the file itself in the editor, or roll back changes for the edited files.

From here, you can accept all changes, give Junie a follow-up task, or roll everything back if needed.

In our case, Junie created CRUD screens for managing books. It also wrote tests and executed them without any manual interference. There’s a new database seeder, and it was actually run, with 10 test books added to the database.

Exactly as instructed!

Try Junie

The power of Junie guidelines

In the initial prompt, I instructed Junie on which technologies to use. However, for more consistent outcomes, it’d be better to create a .junie/guidelines.md file in the project root and list all the preferred technologies, naming conventions, and coding standards there. Guidelines can also spare Junie from making irrelevant assumptions and minimize follow-ups or manual intervention.

You can compose the guidelines file yourself, ask Junie to generate project-specific guidelines on an existing project for you, or reuse the guidelines and rules that are specific to your framework or technology stack shared by other developers, for example, Laravel guidelines by David Carr.

💡Tip: Use the .aiignore file to restrict Junie from accessing specific files and directories.

Allowed terminal commands

Additionally, in the example above, I manually confirmed all terminal commands run by Junie. However, I feel confident in allowing Junie to run any php artisan command without confirmation. To do so, I’ll add this type of command to the Junie allowlist in the IDE settings via Settings | Tools | Junie | Action Allowlist using the RegEx syntax.

Allowing all php artisan commands would look as follows:

To enable Junie to run all terminal commands without user confirmation, select the Brave Mode checkbox.

Ask mode

Junie comes with the agentic code mode selected by default. However, you can also chat with Junie in Ask mode, asking questions referencing your project context but without having your code changed.

Using Junie on existing projects

We started with a clean project and let Junie do its thing. But what about existing projects? Junie is optimized for a profound understanding of the project context and working with large-scale repos and complicated tasks. PHP developers can use Junie to:

Analyze and understand a large legacy codebase and update it to the latest versions of the framework and packages it uses.
Analyze the commit history to figure out issues in PHP or JavaScript code and fix them.
Analyze the codebase to detect weak spots and areas for improvement.
Explore new ways of implementing features or come up with quick proofs of concept.
Challenge Junie with something creative and investigate new ways of collaboration between human and agent!

Junie is extremely powerful in delivering coding results, but ultimately, what it can do depends on the accuracy of the input it gets and the proficiency of the engineer using it. Do you have any impressive “Junified” use cases to share with us? We’d love to hear about them!

What developers say

Check out what other PHP developers have used Junie for:

NEW PhpStorm Junie AI VS Cursor: “Usable” Agent from JetBrains? by Povilas Korop
New AI Editor by JetBrains: Junie by Nuno Maduro
First impressions of Junie with PhpStorm by Carlos Granados

Junie is already making quite an impression in the PHP and Laravel communities. Here’s what early users say:

Played around with Junie today. Very cool – and it does a particularly great job of showing you what it's doing. https://t.co/sSARLq0YrA pic.twitter.com/huDMG120wA
— Jeffrey Way (@jeffrey_way) May 12, 2025

I'm trying out Junie from @jetbrains in @phpstorm. I'm impressed.
The thing that stood out so far is that I didn't have to give it specific references to the files that need to be updated and it found all of them on its own. And at the end it asked to run the build process to…
— Mircea Sandu (@mircea_sandu) May 12, 2025

Gotta correct myself — Junie isn’t that slow when you consider it’s the best coding assistant I’ve tried so far. The results are insanely good. Amazing work, @jetbrains!
— Patrik Gmitter (@PatrikGmitter) May 25, 2025

Finally got round to giving Junie in @phpstorm a go, it was a great help figuring out and then fixing some N+1 issues I was having in my application!
— Jon Purvis (@JonPurvis_) May 18, 2025

Try Junie

Renaming files with Hazel - Rob Allen

2025-06-17T10:00:00.000Z

I'm a member of a number of groups that publish a magazine, either paper-based or PDF. I prefer the PDF version, so download from the website and then move to the relevant directory.

Recently, I realised that I could use Hazel to do this for me.

To take one example, the filename of the PDF that I download is of the format PE-{issue number}-web{some random characters}.pdf, for example: PE-123-web9j45s3gd.pdf. There's sometimes a hyphen after web, but not always.

I want the filename to PE Magazine {issue number}

The rule in Hazel looks like this:

Matching the name

Breaking it down, we detect that this is a file of interest with a Name matches rule. We can start with the literal string PE- as that's constant, but then we need to match the number and also give it a name so that we can refer to it later.

This is done using the "Custom Text" element. You can then click on it to edit its attributes where I set its name to "issue" and the pattern to "Number" which matches sequential digits.

The rest of the name match is a hyphen followed by an "Anything" element as we don't care about any other characters.

Renaming

Now that we have we can use the Rename with pattern action with the literal "PE Magazine - " followed by our "issue" custom element that we created in the match rule, followed by the extension.

Finishing it off

Once the file has been renamed, there's a "Move to folder" action to move it the right place and then the folder is opened, so that I can grab the file if I need to.

That's it. Automating the rename and move means that I don't have to think about it again.

How to make emojis in PHP - Exakat

2025-06-10T16:01:28.000Z

How to make emojis in PHP

You might want to use emojis both in your online comments and your PHP code. The later, mostly to hander the former, although PHP handles emojis gracefully. That are the methods to make emojis in PHP?

Straight in the code

PHP supports code savec in UTF-8. And emojis are also available in that character set so it is possible to use them directly in the code.

<?php

echo '';

?>

This method is direct and visual. You may need an emoji encyclopedia, such as https://emojipedia.org/, or emojis.wiki, where copy-paste is a great tool to select any emoji.

Yet, this all depends on the underlying text file to be always stored as UTF-8.

Using Escape Sequences

It is possible to make emojis without relying on the UTF-8 support of the editor. PHP accepts escape sequences, which is a special format to represent long UTF-8 characters. All is in ASCII characters, so these emojis are more stable in the code. They are also no WISIWIG.

<?php

// Method 1: Direct Unicode escape sequences
echo "\u{1F418}"; //  elephpant

?>

Using ext/mbstring

mbstring is the PHP extension for Multi-bytes strings. It is installed on many PHP binary, as it is commonly used for UTF-8 manipulation. There is a dedicated function to create the emoji.

<?php

print  iconv('UTF-8', 'UCS-2BE', pack('H*', '1F418'); //  elephpant

?>

The codepoint has to be provided as an hexadecimal value, hence the 0x prefix. In particular, the codepoint is mentionned in emoji or UTF-8 character references. It is also possible to pass the decimal or binary value of the codepoint, but it is less common.

Using iconv

The other PHP extension to convert between encodings is iconv. The first step is to pack the codepoint into a 32 big endian integer, then to convert it from UCS-4 (big endian) to UTF-8.

<?php

print iconv('UCS-4BE', 'UTF-8', pack('N', 0x1f418)); //  elephpant

?>

Using html_entity_decode()

html_entity_decode() converts HTML sequences to characters. This is an alternative to using PHP escape-sequences,

<?php

 print html_entity_decode('&#' . 0x1F418 . ';', ENT_NOQUOTES, 'UTF-8'); //  elephpant
 // space between dot and 0 is important
 
?>

Using a ready-made PHP component

There are components that convert method calls, constants or escape sequences to emojis. This makes it easier to handle in case the emojis are dynamically managed, such as automatically added in titles or comments.

You can use emojione/emojione or spatie/emoji

<?php

echo ""; //  elephpant
echo Emoji::elephant(); //  elephpant
echo Emoji::CHARACTER_ELEPHANT; //  elephpant
 
?>

Five ways to make emojis in PHP

These are at least five ways to make emojis in PHP. Also, they may be used in PHP code itself, not just for string manipulations. This may be applicable for mathematical functions (function ∑(…$numbers)) or localisation (class 商品Manager). A lot of fun!

The post How to make emojis in PHP appeared first on Exakat.

How PhpStorm Helps Maintain PHP Open-Source Projects: Interviews and Real-World Examples - PhpStorm : The IDE that empowers PHP developers | The JetBrains Blog

2025-06-10T10:00:00.000Z

The PHP ecosystem is driven by passionate developers building tools that power everything from content management systems right the way through to testing libraries and database layers. Behind each project is a dedicated team working to modernize code, improve performance, and move the ecosystem forward.

The fact that many of these teams choose PhpStorm to support their work is a source of pride for all of us at JetBrains and serves as proof of the positive impact on the wider PHP community of our free and discounted license program for open-source contributors. This post highlights standout PHP projects and the people behind them. Whether they’re debugging complex systems or maintaining test suites, PhpStorm helps streamline workflows, reduce friction, and free up time for what matters most – building.

PHPUnit

Sebastian Bergmann started PHPUnit as a university project, prompted by a discussion with a professor who thought that a tool like JUnit could not be implemented for PHP. Since then, PHPUnit has been the backbone of PHP testing for over two decades and has shaped how PHP developers write and maintain tests. It remains the go-to testing framework for PHP projects of all sizes.

I tried every PHP IDE until I got my hands on PhpStorm – the first one that made me more productive, not less. It felt like home right away. I can’t imagine working without its code navigation and refactoring tools.
— Sebastian Bergmann, PHPUnit creator

The latest release, PHPUnit 12, prioritizes code clarity. A major improvement is the clear distinction between test stubs and mock objects via dedicated APIs. This architectural shift simplifies test code maintenance and readability.

Looking ahead, PHPUnit will introduce support for the Open Test Reporting format – a modern, extensible alternative to JUnit XML. Initial support is planned for PHPUnit 12.2 (June 2025), with JUnit XML being deprecated in PHPUnit 13 and removed in PHPUnit 14.

Doctrine DBAL

Doctrine DBAL is a widely used database abstraction layer that gives PHP developers a portable, object-oriented API to interact with SQL databases. It powers a wide range of applications and frameworks across the PHP ecosystem.

I use PhpStorm daily to run PHPUnit tests locally with various configurations, interact with different databases, manage Docker containers, and run static analysis.
— Sergei Morozov, Doctrine DBAL maintainer

While the project is mature and provides most of the essential functionality, ongoing work includes a fundamental rework of schema management, addressing limitations of the original architecture, and ensuring better support for evolving SQL standards and database platforms.

CodeIgniter

CodeIgniter was created as a lightweight, high-performance PHP framework that prioritizes simplicity and developer freedom. It empowers developers to build on their own terms without rigid conventions – a core philosophy that continues to define its appeal.

CodeIgniter v4 maintains the core principles of its predecessor while embracing modern software development practices, such as robust testing and integration with tools like PHPStan, Psalm, and Rector.

One of CodeIgniter v4’s key strengths is its alignment with PHP best practices, allowing PhpStorm to work seamlessly out of the box – no extra plugins needed. The IDE instantly understands CodeIgniter’s patterns and conventions, offering intelligent code completion that streamlines development. This built-in compatibility creates an exceptionally productive experience for our contributors.
— Matt Gatner, CodeIgniter contributor

The team continues to evolve CI4, focusing on performance, modularity, and a smooth developer experience. Upcoming releases aim to stabilize task and queue packages, expand the modular package library, and improve compatibility with the latest PHP versions – all while maintaining the project’s original vision.

Joomla!

Joomla! is a powerful open-source content management system sustained by a global community of volunteers. Its mission is to provide a multilingual, flexible, and secure platform that empowers individuals, small businesses, and nonprofits to publish and collaborate online – all without the steep learning curve of alternative systems.

PhpStorm’s static code analyzer helped me clean up docblocks and better manage the framework. It understands Joomla deeply, making development smoother.
— Hannes Papenberg, Joomla Maintainer

PhpStorm shows me how files are connected, catches syntax errors early, and allows me to focus on actual client needs. It gives me a massive advantage over other web developers who don’t see the value of using it in their daily processes.
— Adam Melcher, Joomla Contributor

As a Joomla core developer, PhpStorm has helped me in so many ways. The step debugger, which I use pretty much every single day, helps track down bugs, understand code flows, and generally, seeing what is going on under the hood is precious. The Joomla plugin adds an extra layer of usability as it understands the Joomla codebase and makes navigating the code a lot easier.
— Roland Dalmulder, Joomla Contributor

Looking ahead, Joomla 6 is scheduled for release on October 14, 2025. It will bring further codebase modernization, better SEO tools, and a built-in health checker – continuing Joomla’s mission to make publishing on the web more inclusive and flexible.

These projects represent just a small part of the global open-source effort, but they reflect the values we admire most: curiosity, craftsmanship, and care for the developer community.

While each project has its own focus, they all rely on consistent, powerful workflows to maintain high standards and move forward with clarity – and JetBrains is proud to support them in this endeavor. If you’re an open-source developer, you might be eligible for a free or discounted PhpStorm license – read more about the available options to see if you qualify.

What’s more, we’re also delighted to be able to host a celebration of the passion and progress of the PHP community in the form of PHPverse 2025 – a free online event taking place on June 17, 2025, where PHP’s most influential voices will share their insights on the language’s evolution and its future. Join us for inspiring talks, discussions, Q&As, and a special PHP anniversary merch giveaway.

Updating SMTP relay in postfix - Rob Allen

2025-06-10T10:00:00.000Z

On a server that I help to maintain, it has postfix installed for emailing results of cron jobs and other status updates. This was set up to relay through SendGrid as they had a 100 email per month plan and we send out significantly fewer than that.

Unfortunately, SendGrid are retiring their free plan, so I had to move to a new service and picked SMTP2GO and so had to update the postfix configuration. As I didn't have this written down, I'm noting in here.

Get SMTP details

You need the SMTP hostname, SMTP username and SMTP password. SMTP2GO allows you to have multiple usernames and usefully allows you to rate limit each one individually, should you need that.

Configure postfix

Firstly, update `/etc/postfix/main.cf`

Find relayhost and change to [mail.smtp2go.com]:587. I'm just updating, so the rest of the settings I left alone.

However, the relevant settings are:

relayhost = [mail.smtp2go.com]:587
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
smtp_use_tls = yes

Secondly, add the new SMTP user's credentials

Edit /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd. This needs to be done as root as the permissions on this file are 600 and it's owned by root:root.

Add a new line with this format:

[mail.smtp2go.com]:587 {username}:{password}

Where {username} is the SMTP username and {password} is the SMTP password.

Save the file and then create the hash database:

sudo postmap /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd

Restart postfix

That's it, so just restart postfix with sudo service postfix restart

Global word count on Mac using Shortcuts - Rob Allen

2025-06-03T10:00:00.000Z

I've had a few cases recently when I wanted to know the number of words that I had written. To do this, I've copied the text to BBEdit which displays the word count in its status bar, but this is a bit of a faff.

I finally sat down and created a Shortcut for it that took 10 mins.

This is the shortcut:

The idea is that I want to select the text and run the shortcut without having to copy to the clipboard, so to do this, I enable "Use as Quick Action" on the Services menu. I also assigned a global shortcut of ⌃⌥⇧⌘W for convenience, though going to the Services menu isn't hard.

A Quick Action shortcut automatically gets a "Receive" input block, which I set to be just accept text input as it makes no sense to count words in other types of text. I also set it to look in the clipboard if there's no selection. Once we have input, we run it through the "Count" action and then pipe to a "Show Alert" so that the value can be seen. It's all quite easy.

That's it. I can now select text and press

⌃⌥⇧⌘W

and the number of words is displayed!

PHP Annotated – May 2025 - PhpStorm : The IDE that empowers PHP developers | The JetBrains Blog

2025-05-30T15:36:07.000Z

Welcome to the May edition of PHP Annotated!

It’s been a minute since the last edition. Turns out time flies when you’re deep in foundation work, and the occasional existential debugging session. But we are back.

Here’s everything you might’ve missed in the PHP world, we dug through the noise so you can just enjoy the highlights.

Highlights

Join PHPverse to Celebrate 30 Years of PHP!

PHP is turning 30 this year! 🎉 PHPverse is a free online event hosted by JetBrains to mark this amazing milestone together.

Register
📅 June 17, 2025
🕚 11:30–16:30 UTC

And if you’re feeling nostalgic, check out my experiment from last year, where I actually run PHP 1.0:
PHP 8.1.32, PHP 8.2.28, PHP 8.3.19, and PHP 8.4.5 Released

❗️These security updates address several vulnerabilities, including:
CVE-2025-1219, CVE-2025-1736, CVE-2025-1861, CVE-2025-1734, CVE-2025-1217, and out-of-bounds read when using XML_OPTION_SKIP_TAGSTART.
PHP Core Security Audit Results

In 2024, the first in a decade external security audit of the PHP core was conducted by The PHP Foundation, and commissioned by the Sovereign Tech Agency. The audit focused on the most critical parts of the PHP source code, given the limited budget.

The audit uncovered 27 issues, 17 of which had security implications. All identified issues have since been fixed by the PHP development team.

PHP users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to the latest PHP versions to benefit from these security improvements.
FrankenPHP Is Now Officially Supported by The PHP Foundation

FrankenPHP, a modern PHP application server built for performance and ease of deployment, is now officially supported by The PHP Foundation.

It’s built in Go, powered by the Caddy web server, and offers a fresh take on running PHP outside of the traditional FPM model.
Run PHP Inside Node.js with @platformatic/php-node

php-node is a Rust-based, Node.js-native module that allows running PHP applications within a Node.js environment. It works by dispatching requests to a PHP instance running multi-threaded in the worker pool provided by the Node.js. This means you can enjoy the performance of Node.js while utilizing PHP’s extensive ecosystem and functionality.

Here is a hello world example:

👉 Intro blog post
Think of an Elephpant 🐘

PHP doesn’t need defending. It needs celebrating.

A brilliant message and post from Liam Hammett!

PHP Core

✅ RFC: Pipe operator v3

The first proposal to bring a pipe operator to PHP dates back to 2016, followed by a second attempt in 2020. Now, on the third try it’s finally happening!

Starting with PHP 8.5, you’ll be able to use the |> operator to chain function calls in a clean, readable way:
```
$result = "Hello World"
            |> htmlentities(...)
            |> str_split(...)
            |> fn($x) => array_map(strtoupper(...), $x)
            |> fn($x) => array_filter($x, fn($v) => $v != 'O');
```
Kudos to Larry Garfield for the persistence and effort to see this through!

Check out Brent’s video overview of PHP 8.5’s pipe operator.
✅ RFC: array_first() and array_last()

PHP 7.3 introduced array_key_first() and array_key_last() to get the first and last keys of an array, but still no functions to get the first and last values of an array.

Thanks to Niels Dossche two new functions will be added in PHP 8.5:
```
array_first([1 => 'a', 0 => 'b', 3 => 'c', 2 => 'd']); // 'a'  
array_last([1 => 'a', 0 => 'b', 3 => 'c', 2 => 'd']); // 'd'  
```
✅ RFC: Marking return values as important (#[\NoDiscard])

PHP 8.5 will come with a new #[\NoDiscard] attribute to indicate that the return value of a function or method is “important” and that not doing anything with the return value is likely to be a bug.
```
#[\NoDiscard("this is important")]
function foo(): int {
    return 0;
}

$results = foo(); // No warning, because the return value is consumed by the assignment

foo();// Warning: The return value of function foo() is expected to be consumed
```
📣 RFC: True Async

Edmond Dantes proposes to create a standard for writing concurrent code in PHP, as well as a C-API interface that will allow PHP to be extended at a low level with C, Rust, C++, and other languages. This will allow modules to support non-blocking I/O operations without having to override PHP functions or duplicate code.

As Edmond clarified on the mailing list, the plan is to simplify the current RFC as much as possible to make it easier to pass. New syntax should be discussed closer to future versions of PHP (likely 9.0).

You can follow the development process almost live in this separate github.com/true-async.
PHP 8.5 release managers announced

As is tradition, PHP 8.5 will have 2 rookie release managers: Volker Dusch and Daniel Scherzer. They will be assisted by veteran RM Pierrick Charron.

There are a few other RFCs with mentioning that passed, are under discussion, or were declined already:

✅ RFC: Add get_error_handler(), get_exception_handler() functions
📣 RFC: Final Property Promotion
📣 RFC: Modern Compression
📣 RFC: Change default zend.exception_ignore_args INI setting
❌ RFC: Nested Classes
❌ RFC: Never Parameters (v2)

Tools

PHP WebRTC
A full implementation of the WebRTC protocol in pure PHP! No Node.js or JavaScript is required on the backend to use. You would need FFI enabled, however.

The goal is to make it easy to build WebRTC-based apps in pure PHP – including media servers, video conference web app, SFUs, and peer-to-peer apps.

Bravo! 👏
phpacker/phpacker
Package any PHP script or PHAR into a standalone, cross-platform executable.

I briefly explained how this works in my blogpost Turn Any PHP Script into a Native Single-File Binary. Phacker makes it really easy and builds for Mac, Linux, and Windows!
NativePHP 1.0
The tool allows building desktop application with PHP and JavaScript/HTML/CSS.

There is also a paid version for iOS and Android devices: NativePHP for Mobile.
boson-php/boson
This is another tool to build cross-platform desktop apps with PHP, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. But instead of Electron, under the hood, it uses saucer/saucer, a modern, cross-platform C++ webview library, which allows making apps really slim:
```
$app = new Boson\Application();

$app->webview->html = <<<'HTML'
    <button onclick="foo('HELLO');">Hello</button>
    HTML;

$app->webview->bind('foo', var_dump(...));
$app->run();
```
NPX-like package execution tools for PHP
There are a few such tools available out there:
- imliam/cpx – Run any command from any composer package, even if it’s not installed in your project.
- eduardocruz/phpx – PHPX is a NPX-like package execution tool for PHP.
I also vibe-coded prototyped my own tool in Python. The difference is that it does not require users to have PHP or Composer on their machine: pronskiy/pocus.

Originally I wanted my friends who have uvx installed to be able to use my MCP servers with no additional prerequisites. So it allows them to run any script from GitHub with one command:
```
uvx pocus https://github.com/pronskiy/mcp examples/echo.php
```
Or any command from an existing PHP package:
```
uvx pocus phpstan/phpstan phpstan analyse ./src
```
masan4444/phpup – Cross-Platform PHP version manager written in Rust. Seems abandoned, but maybe someone wants to pick it up?
php-internal/dload – Helps to download binaries from release assets.
utopia-php/vcs – Lite & fast micro PHP vcs abstraction library that is easy to use.
jerowork/graphql-attribute-schema – Easily build your GraphQL schema using PHP attributes instead of large configuration arrays.
mario-deluna/php-glfw – A fully-featured OpenGL and GLFW extension for PHP.
At first I thought it was another fun project to make cool demos like these:

medilies/php-pong – Classic Pong game programmed with pure OpenGL wrapped in OOP code.

mario-deluna/php-chip8 – Yet another CHIP-8 emulator, but in PHP!.

Or even like this:
phpgl/php-craft – Mining PHPotentials: A Minecraft-Inspired Game written in PHP.

But it actually has useful applications, for example: creating animated code snippets with Tempest Highlight & PHP-GLFW:

AI

The ecosystem of AI tooling for PHP is growing fast! Here are just a few interesting findings.

MCP

If you’re new to the topic, check out my short intro video: MCP – What is that?

I found the interface of logiscapedev/mcp-sdk-php a bit frustrating to work with, so I built a simple wrapper to make things easier:

pronskiy/mcp – 🐉 The fast, PHP way to build MCP servers.

Here’s what a minimal MCP server looks like using the wrapper:

new \Pronskiy\Mcp\Server(name: 'echo-server')  
->tool(  
    name: 'echo' ,  
    description 'Echoes text',  
    fn (string $text) => $text
)->run();

But there is a much more powerful alternative:

php-mcp/server – PHP implementation for the Model Context Protocol (MCP) server.

LLM Frameworks

LLPhant/LLPhant – A lightweight and intuitive framework with tons of ready-to-use tools. Well-documented, actively developed.
inspector-apm/neuron-ai – Open source framework to create full featured AI Agents in PHP.

Using AI models in PHP

Thanks to an open ONNX format, it is possible to run many AI models in PHP natively. These are the tools that facilitate it:

PhpStorm

PhpStorm 2025.1
This release is a major update that includes improvements in PHPStan annotations, Xdebug, and WordPress support. It also includes new subscription system for JetBrains AI with AI Free tier.

And speaking of AI, Junie, the coding agent by JetBrains, is now available for PhpStorm too!
New JetBrains Xdebug Helper browser extension.
Cron & Crontab Support IDE Plugin – Crontab syntax support: schedule periods and errors highlighting, shell command completions, human-readable schedule folding, and more.
Laravel Idea 10 released – The popular plugin for PhpStorm has received a major update. It includes the Database tables and fields completion, code generation improvements, and more.

Frameworks

Laravel 12 is Now Released
This update introduces new starter kits for React, Vue, and Livewire
Capevace/laravel-introspect – Query your Laravel codebase like a database, with an Eloquent-like API.
fdomgjoni99/laravel-ai-factory – A package for generating realistic test data using AI models.
10 Efficient (and Fun) Ways to Seed Your Database by Nico Devs.
Secure Your Webhooks in Laravel: Preventing Data Spoofing by Chris.
Custom PHPStan Rules to Improve Every Symfony project by Tomas Votruba.
Symfony 7.3.0 has been released
Check the Living on the Edge category on this blog to learn about the main features of this new stable release.

Misc

PHP 3 to 8: The Evolution of a Codebase by Aleksander Kaim.
Create Weird Fun PHPStan Rules like Nobody’s Watching by Tomas Votruba.
Discovering PHP’s yield Keyword After 10 Years by Will.
And Then There Was PIE by Derick Rethans.
Combining regular expressions with named capture groups to improve performance by Benjamin Eberlei.

Conferences

These PHP events are all worth a visit, and some are still accepting presentation proposals:

PHPverse 2025 – June 17, Online.
PHP Conference Kansai 2025 – July 18–19, Kobe, Japan.
Laracon 2025 – July 29–30, Denver, CO, USA.
API Platform Conference 2025 – September 18–19, Lille, France.
Forum PHP 2025 – October 9–10, Disneyland Paris, France.
International PHP Conference 2025 – October 27‒31, Munich, Germany.
SymfonyCon Amsterdam 2025 – November 27-28. Amsterdam, Netherlands. CFP

To find a PHP meetup happening near you, check out the calendar on php.net.

Fun

Just fucking use HTML

If you have any interesting or useful links to share via PHP Annotated, please leave a comment on this post or let us know on X/Twitter: @pronskiy.

Subscribe to PHP Annotated

If you have any interesting or useful links to share via PHP Annotated, please leave a comment on this post or let us know on X/Twitter.

Subscribe to PHP Annotated

Roman Pronskiy

Developer Advocate at @PhpStorm, Executive Director at @The PHP Foundation.

Twitter | GitHub

Moving a Perforce P4 P4ROOT to a different drive - Rob Allen

2025-05-27T10:00:00.000Z

On one of my servers here, I run a local Perforce P4 server for my son. He's a game developer and as they use P4 at work, he wanted to learn it in a sandbox and to have somewhere familiar to put his own work.

Installation onto Ubuntu was easy enough and I provided access outside of our local network via Tailscale and all was well.

Recently, I was doing some admin-stuff on the server and realised that the drive that P4 was using was the local 256GB drive rather than one of the big 8TB drives in the box, so I needed to move it. The directory that the instance was using was /opt/perforce/servers/p4d-holland1. This needed moving to /media/ssd1/data/perforce/servers/p4d-holland1.

Note I run a single instance, very default, not-very-important P4 server. Don't just copy these steps blindly if your setup is more complicated or mission critical! Make sure that you read the docs.

These are the steps I followed:

Stop the instance: p4dctl stop p4d-holland1

Move the data by copying it and renaming the old directory (just in case):

mkdir -p /media/ssd1/data/perforce/servers/p4d-holland1
cp -r /opt/perforce/servers/p4d-holland1/* /media/ssd1/data/perforce/servers/p4d-holland1/
mv /opt/perforce/servers/p4d-holland1 /opt/perforce/servers/p4d-holland1-old

Edit /etc/perforce/p4dctl.conf.d/p4d-holland1.conf and update the P4ROOT to the new directory
Start the instance again: p4dctl start p4d-holland1

I didn't see any errors, so I got my son to check it. After he said it was all good, I removed the old /opt/perforce/servers/p4d-holland1-old directory.

My son now has more than enough space to continue his side-projects.

Updated rst2pdf website - Rob Allen

2025-05-20T10:00:00.000Z

Earlier this year, Lorna spent some time updating rst2pdf's website to use Sphinx. The nice thing about Sphinx is that it uses restructuredText, the same as rst2pdf does, so we now stay in the same ecosystem.

While, we could have continued using Jekyll, it makes much more sense for us to use the same markup language as we use for the main tool, and our manual is written in it too. With the Jekyll system, we used docutils with a generic and simple CSS file to create the HTML version of the manual, but now as Sphinx is rST native, it builds the HTML version of the manual and it as it is now styled the same as the website, it looks much better. Of course, we use rst2pdf to generate the PDF version ;)

Rather handily, we now search on the site and also have a dark mode which you can see in this screenshot if your OS is in dark mode as you view this page. I also like that you can click on the "eye" icon and view the rST source for the page.

This required a fair amount of work. Thanks Lorna for taking the time to do it!

PhpStorm 2025.2 Early Access Program Is Now Open - PhpStorm : The IDE that empowers PHP developers | The JetBrains Blog

2025-05-19T12:37:06.000Z

We’re opening the Early Access Program (EAP) for the next major PhpStorm 2025.2 release.

Download PhpStorm 2025.2 EAP

About Early Access Program (EAP)

If you’re not familiar with how our Early Access Program (EAP) works, here’s a quick overview:

We release new EAP builds weekly, giving you a sneak peek at upcoming features.
EAP builds are completely free to use and do not require a license.
You can install the EAP version alongside your stable PhpStorm installation, so there’s no need to uninstall your current version.
The most convenient way to access EAP builds and keep both your stable and EAP versions up-to-date is by using our Toolbox App.
Alternatively, you can download EAP builds from the EAP page or set up your IDE to automatically receive updates by selecting Check IDE Updates for the Early Access Program under Settings/Preferences | Appearance & Behavior | System Settings | Updates.

1-2-3 PHP operators - Exakat

2025-05-17T09:59:04.000Z

1-2-3 operators in PHP

1-2-3 PHP operators

I learnt my PHP on a European keyboard, and it was always a pain to use some strange symbols. When I moved to Canada, I quickly realized that the chosen symbols were actually very easily accessible on the keyboard: it was just my layout that was less practical.

Then, I also realized how these symbols are repeatedly used to make larger ones. There is the single = for assignation, then the double == for equality and then the triple === for identity. It is probably easier to repeat an existing symbol, than to summon a new one, which might be cumbersome to reach on the keyboard.

There is a bit of laziness in this pattern. == might easily mistaken with === (and vice versa) and the mistake might be begnin (or not), but mistaking =and == is, most of the time, a bug.

Here is as selection of 1-2-3 PHP operators, along with their documentation.

1	2	3
.	..	…
+	++	+++
–	—	—
*	**	***
/	//	///
>	>>	>>>
<	<<	<<<
=	==	===
@	@@	@@@
?	??	???
:	::	:::
!	!!	!!!
$	$$	$$$

Dots in PHP

. is the operator of string concatenation.
.. is a syntax error. It is not supported in PHP. In other language, it denotes a range between two operators.
... is the ellipsis operator, to spread or collect values out or in an array

Plus in PHP

+ is the addition operator, for numbers and arrays.
++ is the increment operator. It comes in two flavors, pre-increment or post increment.
+++ is a syntax oddity, where there is no space between an incremented variable and its addition with another value: $b = $a+++ 1; is $b = $a++ + 1;

Minus in PHP

- is the substraction operator, for numbers only.
-- is the decrement operator. It comes in two flavors, pre-increment or post increment.
--- is a syntax oddity, where there is no space between a decremented variable and its substraction with another value: $b = $a--- 1; is $b = $a-- - 1;

Star in PHP

* is the multiplication operator, for numbers.
** is the power operator. It is the multiplication of multiplications, basically.
*** is not supported. Math has a notion of towers of powers, where 4 *** 4 would be 4 ** (4 ** 4). That number is already beyond the integer range, so the operator is probably unuseful.

Slash in PHP

/ is the decimal division operator, for numbers.
// is a one line comment.
/// is a one line comment, starting with a slash.

Greater than in PHP

> is the greater than comparison operator.
>> is the right bitshift operator, which moves bits to the right.
>>> is not supported.

Lesser than in PHP

< is the lesser than comparison operator.
<< is the left bitshift operator, which moves bits to the left.
<<< is the start of the Heredoc and Nowdoc sequence.

Equal in PHP

= is the assignation operator, which gives a value to a variable.
== is the comparison operator. Types are adapted before the comparison actually happens.
=== is the identity operator, which compares values and their types.

Question in PHP

? is half the ternary operator, along with the colon.
?? is the null coalesce operator. It is a ternary operator, specialized with null values.
??? is a classic comment in the code, when someone was surprised by some code.

Colon @ in PHP

: is the label operator, label:, that works with goto. It is also the other half of the ternary operator.
:: is the scope resolution operator, which reachs data at the class level, and not at the object level.
::: is not supported.

Exclamation ! in PHP

! is the negation operator: it turns any value into its boolean opposite.
!! is the negation negation operator. It is basically a shorter (boolean) cast operator, and a barbarism coming from other languages.
!!! is the negation operator, but three times longer to write.

Arobase @ in PHP

@ is the noscream operator, which mutes error reporting on a syntax.
@@ is the noscream operator, which mutes error reporting on a error-muted expression. It is in case the code should really not emit errors.
@@@ is the noscream operator, which mutes error reporting on a doubly error-muted expression. It is in case the code should really really, and I mean really, not emit errors.

1-2-3 operators are fun!

It is interesting to discover the different meanings of an symbol as it is repeated. It might vary a lot in meaning and usage.

It is also interesting to realise that some of these repeated symbol operators are not used yet, and might be promoted to an actual PHP features. Replacing range(1, 19) by 1..19 would be a nice new feature for PHP 8.5.

We could also dream of :::, |||, ___ or even quadruples operators .... or @@@@. Well, sometimes, we already have them!

The post 1-2-3 PHP operators appeared first on Exakat.

Join JetBrains PHPverse to Celebrate 30 Years of PHP - PhpStorm : The IDE that empowers PHP developers | The JetBrains Blog

2025-05-16T14:33:48.000Z

PHP turns 30 this June, and we’re looking forward to celebrating this notable milestone together with you!

On June 17, 2025, we’re hosting JetBrains PHPverse 2025, where prominent people from the PHP community will come together and share their thoughts about the state and the future of the modern PHP language and ecosystem. This is a free online event with inspiring talks, discussions, Q&A sessions, and an exclusive PHP anniversary merch giveaway.

Grab my spot

Agenda

When: 11:30–17:00 UTC on June 17, 2025.

Where: Online

Hosted by: Brent Roose, JetBrains Developer Advocate for PhpStorm and creator of the PHP Annotated YouTube channel, and Nils Adermann, co-founder of Packagist and co-creator of Composer.

Language: English

Lineup:

FrankenPHP: Reinventing PHP for the Modern Web by Kévin Dunglas
Symfony: Current State and Future Plans by Nicolas Grekas
Building MCP Servers With PHP by Marcel Pociot
A PhpStorm Announcement You Won’t Want to Miss!
Laravel Q&A With Its Creator by Taylor Otwell
PHP Anniversary Merch giveaway
The Future of PHP Education by Jeffrey Way, Povilas Korop, and Kevin Bond
How AI Is Changing the Tech Industry by Cheuck Ting Ho
PHP Foundation: Growing PHP for the Future by Roman Pronsky and Gina Banyard

For more information about the speakers and their talks, see the PHPverse 2025 page.

What to expect

Each talk will be 20 minutes long with a 10-minute Q&A session afterward, so you are welcome to ask the speakers any questions you may have. Besides talks and the Q&A, we’ve prepared one panel discussion and a couple of exciting announcements!

We’ll stream the event on the official JetBrains YouTube channel, and all of the talks will remain available after the event is over so you can catch up on any you miss.

“I’m super excited to celebrate 30 years of PHP together with the community and hope to see you there!”

Brent Roose, PHP Annotated YouTube channel Developer Advocate for PhpStorm

Can’t make it on June 17? Register anyway and you’ll receive the link with the talk recordings via email after the event.

Ask speakers now

Already have questions for our speakers? Leave them in the comments below this blog post, and the event hosts will make sure to ask them during the Q&A sessions.

Get ready and help spread the word around the PHP community!

Using OneOf for a property in an OpenAPI spec - Rob Allen

2025-05-13T10:00:00.000Z

When writing an OpenAPI specification, I came across the need for a particular property in an error response to be either a string or an object.

This situation came about when validating a POST request that takes an items property that is a list of objects

As a contrived example of a pet with accessories, consider this example request in curl:

curl -X "POST" "http://api.example.com/pets" \
     -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     -d $'{
  "name": "Rover",
  "items": [
    {
      "name": "collar"
      "count": 1
    },
    {
      "name": "bowl"
      "count": 2
    }
  ],
}'

For the items property, there are two error responses if validation fails:

Property missing or wrong type.
For example:

{
  "items": "Items property is required"
}

Missing or invalid sub property
For example on the count property of the second item:

{
  "items": [
    {
    },
    {
        "count": "Item count must be a positive integer"
    }
  ]
}

To document this in OpenAPI, I wrote the following for my '400' response (simplified):

'400':
  description: Validation failed
  content:
      application/json:
        schema:
          type: object
          properties:
            errors:
              type: object
              properties:
                name:
                  type: string
                  example: "Pet name must not be empty"
                items:
                  oneOf:
                    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/ValidationErrorPetItemsObject'
                    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/ValidationErrorPetItemsString'

Within the components -> schemas section, we define both schemas:

ValidationErrorPetItemsString:
  type: string
  example: "Items property is required"


ValidationErrorPetItemsPropertyObject:
  type: array
  items:
    type: object
    properties:
      id:
        type: string
        example: "Item name is required"
      count:
        type: string
        example: "Item count must be a positive integer"

I don't know how to specify that an empty array will be included so that the client can work out which item object has the problem, so for now it is documented in the description.

There's probably other ways to solve this, but this is the one I came up with. If there's a better way, let me know.

Additional parameters on a PHP interface method - Rob Allen

2025-05-06T10:00:00.000Z

On the Roave Discord recently, there was a discussion about not breaking BC in interfaces inspired by this post by Jérôme Tamarelle:

It's clearly true that if you add a new parameter to a method on an interface, then that's a BC break as every concrete implementation of the interface needs to change their signature.

However, Gina commented that you don't need to use func_get_arg() as concrete implementations can add additional optional arguments.

WHAT?!!!

I didn't know this and it had never occurred to me to try, so I had to go 3v4l.org and check

<?php

interface Foo
{
    public function bar(int $a): void;
}

class Baz implements Foo
{
    public function bar(int $a, int $b=2): void
    {
        echo "$a: $b";
    }
}

(new Baz)->bar(1,3);

Sure enough, this code works!

I don't have much of a need for this, but it's useful to know.

Some thoughts on LLM usage in my work - Rob Allen

2025-04-29T10:00:00.000Z

While it would be nice to put the genie back in the bottle, that hasn't happened often in human history, so for the foreseeable future, AI in the form of LLMs are here to stay. I imagine that what we use them for will change over time as we collectively internalise their limitations.

Personally, I'm now using them for my work as much as I reasonably can. This is involving many different areas, such as asking questions that I would previously have just googled. While the LLM does make things up, the first 40 answers on Google can be decidedly less than helpful nowadays too. The LLM will read many more webpage results than I can be bothered to, provide a summary and cite its sources so that I can click a few to get a feel for how much I trust it.

When developing, I'm using the LLM for multiple tasks. It can help me find bugs when I paste in snippets of code and say "this code is getting X wrong. Tell me why and propose a fix". I generally find that this level of focussed question works quite well, though sometimes, it will go off on a tangent and never come back.

In an IDE, I've found LLM-based smart-autocomplete from something like Copilot works quite well. Again, it's a focussed small task and so tends to work reasonably well for me. I've also found that writing a comment as I would normally do helps the LLM get it right.

New to me is Claude Code. This command line tool reads the files in the current directory and can operate on them. I've found that it is able to do bigger chunks of work as a result and I use git diff to assess its work and tweak as necessary before I personally commit.

One thing that is obvious in hindsight, but if I don't have a clear idea in my mind of what I need, then the tools will do worse. This can be more clearly seen with the larger blocks of work, so now, if I'm exploring how and what I want to do, I will talk with the LLM more conversationally more like a brainstorming session to get to the point where I know what I want to do. Then I can instruct it to do the work. This works no differently from trying to delegate a job to a junior and sounds so obvious when written down. However, in the excitement of seeing the magic of the LLM doing the right thing, it's easy to forget and then be surprised when it goes so so wrong.

Not every tool is useful for everyone or useful in every situation. There are also ethical and environmental considerations that affect how people view any given technology and I do not want to suggest that LLM tools must be used; they don't.

I realise that I'm not using these tools are much as others, however, I'm finding them useful.

Quine in PHP : self displaying code - Exakat

2025-04-24T20:21:39.000Z

Quines for PHP

A quine is a piece of code that executes to produce itself. This is a self displaying code. The execution of the code outputs the same source code, before it was executed. No changes happened, and one may run it again, to the same result.

While this code curiosity has rare direct applications, the challenge leads to interesting cases and manipulations. Here are a few of them.

Quine with print()

<?php
$code = '<?php
$code = %s;
printf($code, 39, $code, 39);
';
printf($code, 39, $code, 39);

The $code variable contains the source code as a string, with %s as a placeholder for where $codewill be inserted.

The printf() function uses %s to format the string, and the 39 arguments represent the ASCII value for single quotes '. So, printf($code, 39, $code, 39) effectively wraps $code in quotes for the output. When executed, this script outputs its own source code exactly as written, fulfilling the quine requirement. This is a straightforward and compact quine, relying on string formatting to replicate itself.

A Quine Using var_export

Another pragmatic approach is to use var_export(), which outputs a parseable string representation of a variable. Here’s an example:

<?php
$a = '<?php $a = %s; echo sprintf($a, var_export($a, true));';
echo sprintf($a, var_export($a, true));

The $a variable holds the source code template with a %s placeholder. var_export($a, true)generates a string representation of $a, including quotes, which is then inserted into the template using sprintf(). When executed, echo outputs the entire script, matching the source code. This method is similar to the first but uses var_export() to handle the string representation of the code, which can be particularly useful for ensuring the output is a valid PHP string.

A Quine With a Function and getdefinedvars()

Here’s a more creative approach using a function and PHP’s getdefinedvars to access the source code:

 <?php function q() { $v = get_defined_vars(); echo "<?php\nfunction q() {\n \$v = get_defined_vars();\n echo \$v['s'];\n}\n\$s = " . var_export($v['s'], true) . ";\nq();\n"; } $s = "<?php\nfunction q() {\n \$v = get_defined_vars();\n echo \$v['s'];\n}\n\$s = " . var_export($s, true) . ";\nq();\n"; q();

The function q() uses get_defined_vars() to access all variables in its scope, including $s, which contains the source code. The $s variable is a string that includes the entire script, with var_export()used to properly format $s within itself. When q()is called, it outputs the value of $s, which is the source code itself. This quine is more complex because it uses a function and PHP’s introspection capabilities, but it still achieves the same goal.

A Quine Using File Reading

Some quines cheat by reading their own source file, though this is often disallowed in strict quine competitions because it uses external input (the file itself). Still, it’s a common technique in PHP:

 <?php echo file_get_contents(__FILE__);

FILE is a PHP magic constant that gives the full path to the current script.file_get_contents(__FILE__) reads the script’s source code and echo outputs it. This outputs the exact source code, but it’s considered a “cheating quine” because it relies on reading the file rather than generating the code internally.

Quine with PHP native functions

This is a quine by Tim Bond. It is based on reading the source of the quine in a file, but without file_get_contents(), and with a twist.

<?php

echo html_entity_decode(strip_tags(highlight_file($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'], true)));

The file is read with highlight_file(), but cleaned into text with strip_tags() and html_entity_decode(). This is quite a detour to read the source, but it works flawlessly.

Quine and chr()

A nice and rather unreadable quine from Zuchmanski.

<?
$a='chr(60).chr(63).chr(10).chr(36).chr(97).chr(61).chr(39).$a.chr(39).chr(59).chr(10)."echo $a;".chr(10).chr(63).chr(62)';
echo chr(60).chr(63).chr(10).chr(36).chr(97).chr(61).chr(39).$a.chr(39).chr(59).chr(10)."echo $a;".chr(10).chr(63).chr(62);
?>

This quine is based on the ASCII representation of the code, which is turned into actual characters with the chr() function, and then glued together with the concatenation. With a bit of ASCII knowledge, you will find the characters to write a (aka, 97) or ' (39, as seen previously). The code is injected in a variable, then echo-ed to the output again later.

Quine and chr()

Here is the quine that waited for years to be published, by Benoit Viguier.

<?=(fn($s)=>"<?=$s(\x27$s\x27)?>")('(fn($s)=>"<?=$s(\x27$s\x27)?>")')?>

It is based on arrow functions: look among the pile of punctuations, the arrow function (fn($s)) is defined, then immediately called upon itself, with the code in a string. The quotes are hidden with a character sequence \x27, and there is not a single semi colon in sight. Quite a feat for the PHP parser!

PHP Quine

There are many ways to create a quine in PHP. echo or print for the display, and a duplication of the code in a variable which is later displayed. The result is quite fascinating: it is a fixed point, and it is guaranteed to exists, thanks to PHP being a language Turing complete!

Now, where will we use these in an actual application?

The post Quine in PHP : self displaying code appeared first on Exakat.

1	2	3
.	..	…
+	++	+++
–	—	—
*	**	***
/	//	///
>	>>	>>>
<	<<	<<<
=	==	===
@	@@	@@@
?	??	???
:	::	:::
!	!!	!!!
$	$$	$$$

1	2	3
.	..	…
+	++	+++
–	—	—
*	**	***
/	//	///
>	>>	>>>
<	<<	<<<
=	==	===
@	@@	@@@
?	??	???
:	::	:::
!	!!	!!!
$	$$	$$$

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Firstly, update `/etc/postfix/main.cf`

1	2	3
.	..	…
+	++	+++
–	—	—
*	**	***
/	//	///
>	>>	>>>
<	<<	<<<
=	==	===
@	@@	@@@
?	??	???
:	::	:::
!	!!	!!!
$	$$	$$$