Php Development » PHP/mysql

sending email with PHP (2)

mahesh chari — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:15:01 +0000

Configure PHP email function for windows server.

We learnt about sending mail from PHP with linux sendmail in this series of tutorial. On windows we don’t have pre configured email sever on mostly server. to fix this PHP mail function on windows, we can do with ini_set php function or setting it up on php.ini.

Setting php.ini

if you have access to php.ini ,you can change the default global value .

[mail function]
SMTP = localhost
sendmail_from = me@example.com

Setting at run time ini_set

we can change this configuration at run time with ini_set function as given below.

ini_set('SMTP','localhost'); 
ini_set('sendmail_from', 'fromaddress@domain.com');

Example

 
ini_set('SMTP','localhost'); 
ini_set('sendmail_from', 'fromaddress@domain.com'); 
 
 
$to = 'toaddress@domain.com';
$subject = 'Sample  subject';
$body = 'message body '; 
 
mail($to, $subject , $body);

sending email with PHP (1)

mahesh chari — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:10:57 +0000

How to send email in PHP

Email ( Electronic mail ) is most popular communication service on internet . Generally it is common practice to use this service as marketing media for digital products. There are a lot of free email service available on internet like Gmail, Yahoo,AOL and more.

So as a developer we must know the mail functionality in PHP like send mail with php and read mail with PHP imap ,pop functions. in this tutorial we are going to learn how to send the mail with different MIM types and it mail components.

An email message consists of three components, the message envelope, the message header, and the message body. envelope controls the mail sending path like where it originated and where to be sent the mail. header part will denotes the contents of the email and sender and receiver information. body part contains the main user data information.In this series mail tutorial we learn with different PHP functions to send the mail.

On Linux server by default PHP comes with send mail or exim email server. But on windows PHP must be configured to allow from SMTP .

Main PHP extensions for email handling are

Cyrus
IMAP
Mail
Mailparse
vpopmail

PHP email function

mail ( $to , $subject , $message ,$headers)

This function takes mainly four parameters, to,subject, message, headers.It will return a boolean that refers if mail is sent successfully or not.

$to parameter

$to parameter is a string to recipients of the email , we can give the ‘,’ comma separated email address. it can be send for more than one recipients at at time.

$to = '"To Display Name1" ';
$to .= ',"To Display Name2" ';

$subject parameter

$subject="This is my sample subject.";

$message parameter contain any length of string that is sperated with new line characters .

$message="Sample message line 1 \n";
$message.="sample message line 2";

$header parameter

is the modifier or extending the mail sending option.It has many options ,but we will discuss importent ones here. see below snippet for example.

$headers = 'From: "Sender Display Name" ' . PHP_EOL .
'Cc: "CC Display Name" ' . PHP_EOL .
'X-Mailer: PHP-' . phpversion() . PHP_EOL.
'MIME-Version: 1.0' . PHP_EOL. 'Content-type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8' . PHP_EOL.
'X-Priority: 1 (Higuest)'.PHP_EOL.
'X-MSMail-Priority: High'.PHP_EOL.
'Importance: High'.PHP_EOL.
'Reply-To: info@example.com'.PHP_EOL.
'Return-Path: info@example.com.PHP_EOL.
'Message-Id: <' . md5(uniqid(microtime())) . '@' . $hostname . '>'.PHP_EOL.

In the above code PHP_EOL is PHP constant that represent new line character .

Main list of email headers

&nbsp

From, email header notes from what email address is sent.

Cc , this email header inform the server that this mail also can be sent to this email address also.

X-Mailer, this email header inform the mail recipent client about the sender client.

MIME , this email header tells about the how the mail should be handle like plain text,html and attachment.

X-Priority, tells the priority of the email for generel server.

X-MSMail-Priority, tell the priority of the email for windows server hosted email servers.

Importance, tells the priority of the email this will work for some of the email server.

Reply-To, if user reply the sent email ,what the email address it to be taken, if it is not given default is From ,email header.

Return-Path, if an email is bounced, where to be notified , this can be same email address like From or other email also.this email header can be used to track some email campains .

Message-Id, is optional email header if we do not provide server will automatically generates and sends. this header can be used to track email campaings also.

php get url

mahesh chari — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:36:03 +0000

How to get current page full URL with PHP

In mostly case we might be need current url of the page with PHP in user log in authentication functionality. when a user go for log in page, after successfull log in the user we should return the user to same page where he came from . this is same for log out scenario also. We need this current page url in cross site cummunication also. So i wrote a small php function to get the current url of the working page.

function current_url()
{
    if (!isset($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'])) {
        $serverrequri = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
    } else {
        $serverrequri = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
    }
    /**
     * server request uri depends upon server OS version
     */
    $s = empty($_SERVER["HTTPS"]) ? '' : ($_SERVER["HTTPS"] == "on") ? "s" : "";
    /**
     * get protocal if SSL enabled.
     */
    $serverprotocol = strleft(strtolower($_SERVER["SERVER_PROTOCOL"]), "/") . $s;
    $serverport = ($_SERVER["SERVER_PORT"] == "80") ? "" : (":" . $_SERVER["SERVER_PORT"]);
    /**
     * Page might be run with IP and Port also like 127.0.0.1:8080
     */
    return $serverprotocol . "://" . $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] . $serverport . $serverrequri;
}

By calling above function you get the current page url and you pass this url to log in and log out page with return get parameter with base64_encode and send back user to by base64_decode .

md5 php

mahesh chari — Sun, 08 May 2011 06:55:59 +0000

php salt random password generation with md5

At present we are going to learn password hashing with random php string. Even we state this for PHP ,but this logic can be applied to any programming language. hashing means generating one way encrypting the given string, which is impossible to get the original string from the hash. this helps to prevent the brute force attaks. This hashing can be used not only password hashing ,it can be applied to user sensitive data .main goal for hashing a string is get uniqueness one data for given fixed lenngth string and generating at minimum time and miniumum application resources.

Why hashing a string or password?

for example we take the authentication system where we store the user name and password in plain format. when hacker get into our application got access to database, then he can see the user password. in this case not only hacker can see that passwords,but also other webmasters, coder,designer ..etc can also see the password.

 
$username=$_POST['username'];
$password=$_POST['password'];
$result=mysql_query("INSERT INTO tbl_user (username,password) VALUES ('$username','$password')") ;
/** sample tbl_user data
*username , password
*mahesh,mypassword1
*chari,password2
*/
?>

So we must encrypt the password by using php famouse algorithms like md5,sha1..etc. for example.

 
$username=$_POST['username'];
$password=md5($_POST['password']);
$result=mysql_query("INSERT INTO tbl_user (username,password) VALUES ('$username','$password')") ;
/** sample tbl_user data
*username , password
*mahesh,0d28e4080dc8f64fc9603639bb7aa1b9
*chari,6cb75f652a9b52798eb6cf2201057c73
*/
?>

With this method hacker who may access database can not gues the password, but he can know that password with brute force algorithms. This algorithm guess the key with all available alphabet combinations. like a,b,c,…..aa,ab,ac…aaa..aab…etc. So this is also use less or weak implementation of authentication.

Now we add a application secrete that can be called plain hash to user password and do the encrypt, now brute force attack takes much time compared to previous one, it is some what strong compared to other. but if the hacker get to know this secret it is make easy again.

 
define('HASH','mysecretehash');
$username=$_POST['username'];
$password=md5(HASH.$_POST['password']);
$result=mysql_query("INSERT INTO tbl_user (username,password) VALUES ('$username','$password')") ;
/** sample tbl_user data
*username , password
*mahesh,4e71c452f4aa24c19bf807a957986fc8
*chari,c645f52b2d8fcfc25e78ed73fc030bd3
*/
?>

Since this plain salt is also weak, we generate a strong one that contains special symbols,numbers,capital letter,small letters and more lengthy and keep in mind that it wont take much time to encrypt and application resources.

Now we use salt with md5 ,then it get more strong.

 
define('HASH',md5('mysecretehash'));
$username=$_POST['username'];
$password=md5(HASH.$_POST['password']);
$result=mysql_query("INSERT INTO tbl_user (username,password) VALUES ('$username','$password')") ;
/** sample tbl_user data
*username , password
*mahesh,4e71c452f4aa24c19bf807a957986fc8
*chari,c645f52b2d8fcfc25e78ed73fc030bd3
*/
?>

Now even though above password is so strong but there is still a chance to know if attacker waits for a long time.

Now we use more customized salt generation for individual user liek , we combine user name also into salt.

 
define('HASH',md5('mysecretehash'));
$username=$_POST['username'];
$password=md5($_POST['username'].HASH.$_POST['password']);
$result=mysql_query("INSERT INTO tbl_user (username,password) VALUES ('$username','$password')") ;
/** sample tbl_user data
*username , password
*mahesh,4e71c452f4aa24c19bf807a957986fc8
*chari,c645f52b2d8fcfc25e78ed73fc030bd3
*/
?>

Now it is 98% is stronger than previous ones. remaining is there chance if attaker wait long time.

now we use individaul random salt that is totally unique for each user, so it become more powerfull and strong. now we deal with real solution with customized solution for each individual salt .

 
//generate unique random string with given length
function salt($length=6)
	{
		srand((double)microtime()*1000000);
		$randsymbols  = "!@#$%^&*()_+=-';:,<.>`~?[]{}";
		$randchar = "0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"; 
		$salt = array();
		while($length > 0) {
			$str = $length%3==0 ? $randsymbols : $randchar;
			$salt[] = $str[rand() % strlen($str) - .04];
			$length--;
		}
		shuffle($salt);
		mt_srand(); 
		return(implode("", $salt));
	}
//hash the string with favorite encrypt algorithm, here i used md5, you can consider sha1 or else	
function password($str, $salt)
{
	return md5(md5($str) . $salt);
}
?>

Now we have two functions one do gives unique string ,other do hashing the password. now we add one column to our tbl_user , called customsalt as varchar(45) , now we add the user to as below

 
define('HASH',md5('mysecretehash'));
$username=$_POST['username'];
$customsalt=salt(3);
$password=password($_POST['username'].HASH.$_POST['password'],$customsalt);
$result=mysql_query("INSERT INTO tbl_user (username,password,customsalt) VALUES ('$username','$password','$customsalt')") ;
/** sample tbl_user data
*username , password,customsalt
*mahesh,4e71c452f4aa24c19bf807a957986fc8,c645f52b2d8fcfc25e78ed73fc030bd3
*chari,c645f52b2d8fcfc25e78ed73fc030bd3,4e71c452f4aa24c19bf807a957986fc8
*/
?>

Okay , now we consider fetching the user data and validating the user given user name and password for log in functionality.


define('HASH',md5('mysecretehash'));
$username=$_POST['username'];
$password=$_POST['password'];
$user=mysql_fetch_object(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM tbl_user WHERE username='$username'"));
if($user){
	$hashed=password($_POST['username'].HASH.$_POST['password'],$user->customsalt);
	if($hashed!==$user->password){
		echo 'Invalid password.';
	}
}
 
?>

Remember you must put your hash constant in non public directory and put that file into running script.

This is my idea only where i implemented on my projects , each developer has own methods as per their application level security level.

mysql foreign key constraint

mahesh chari — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:42:43 +0000

#1005 – Can’t create table ‘tbl_user’ (errno:105)

While we design ER model of our database (schema) , we get this common error . i was asked by many of my friends and colleagues about this issue.
first we have to check the tables for both primary tables and foreign tables ,if a Er table exists we have to check for both main tables have primary key are indexed are not.

This error causes mainly adding foreign key constraint without indexing primary keys.
primary and foreign keys must have same type.
Another this works with only innoDB engine only.

ping search engins

mahesh chari — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 16:29:18 +0000

How to submit our new site to search engine.

Generelly web developers build sites or web application and think they completed their job, ofcourse it is. There is a little bit task is that submit the site to search engines like google,yahoo,bing and ask.Search engines will crawl the sites from TLD’s zone files in regular interval. So the main entry point for the site is index page of the site. from there search engines crawl the site,if the index page has proper linked. So if a page of our site to be submitted to search engine, it should be linked atleast on other pages. In most cases it won’t happen completely. In some cases our site or web application is complexed or user generated content.

So we should make a site map that has all site pages indexed in the specified format or protocal from the sitemap.org . We submit this sitemap.xml to search engines by ping . Even there is no use of sitemap.xml in the point of SEO (search engine optimisation) , but our site will be indexed properly .

Ping the search engines

Why we ping the search engins?

Search engine takes some time to crawl the web site depending on its schedule.
May be some web applications content is generated dynamically by users in timely manner .
In some cases our web site can not be properly inter linked to all our web pages.
improper navigation system.
Some content may be accessed by ajax only ,not for search engines.
Updating the web site content in regular interval, but search engine takes time to update that content.

What is sitemap.xml?

Sitemap is an easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling. In its simplest form, a Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each web page. You can see the detail protocal or format by visiting sitemaps.org

How to build sitemap.xml?

We can code the sitemap.xml if our web site is dynamically generated content.
We can build manually sitemap.xml ,if our site is static and has less pages.
We can build sitemap.xml by online tools,if our site is large and has more static pages.

How can we submit the sitemap.xml to search engins?

We can submit the sitemap.xml to search engine by manually in regular interval , weekly ,daily,monthly or when our web content is modified.
We can submit the sitemap.xml by scripting or coding with cron job with some regular interval or when our web content updated.

What are the submitting URLs of search engines?

Google:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http://www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml

Yahoo:

http://search.yahooapis.com/SiteExplorerService/V1/updateNotification?appid=YahooDemo&url=http://www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml

MSN or Bing :

http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?siteMap=http://www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml

Ask:

http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml

Ping the above serch engine submit urls

Just open your web browser address bar and copy the above URLS by replacing www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml with your sitemap url.

Submitting sitemap with PHP


@file_get_contents("http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http://www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml");
@file_get_contents("http://search.yahooapis.com/SiteExplorerService/V1/updateNotification?appid=YahooDemo&url=http://www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml");
@file_get_contents("http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml");
@file_get_contents("http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?siteMap=http://www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml");
 
?>

Remember file_get_contents
function need permission for open remote pages on server, if not you can use fsocket_open, curl

60 validation functions with php 2 part

mahesh chari — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 07:01:07 +0000

This is second part of 60 PHP validation functions.

Download the code

PHP validation functions

Validation for Javascript injection (jssafe)

Use: There is a chance to hackers to include javascript code in our Input form elements such as Text area ,Text element.It is best practice to avoid such hacking in E-commerce applications.

Javascript Script Regular Expression

/<script[^>]*>[\s\r\n]*(<\!--)?|(-->)?[\s\r\n]*<\/script>/

PHP function

  /**
  * Check given sting has script tags
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_jssafe($val)
  {
  return (bool)(!preg_match("/]*>[\s\r\n]*(<\!--)?|(-->)?[\s\r\n]*<\/script>/",
  $val));
 
  }

Validation for String length

Use: validate string length.

Regular Expression

We used handy PHP functions here

PHP function

  /**
  * check for exactly length of string
  * @param   string  
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_length($val, $length)
  {
  return (strlen($val) == (int)$length);
 
  }

Validation for lower case String

Use: Oops! in my experiance i didn’t got a chance to validate againest this. But i kept for reference cause it may use full to any one.

Regular Expression

/^[a-z]+$/

PHP function

  /**
  * Given sting is lower cased
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_lower($val)
  {
  return (bool)preg_match("/^[a-z]+$/", $val);
 
  }

Validate macaddress

Use: In some network related and secure money transfer application ,it best practice to rely on MacAddress than IP address. This can be captured with JAVA applet only

Mac address Regular Expression

/^([0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F]:){5}([0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F])$/

PHP function

  /**
  * Checks given value again MAC address of the computer
  * @param   string   value      
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_macaddress($val)
  {
  return (bool)preg_match('/^([0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F]:){5}([0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F])$/',
  $val);
  }

Validation for strict Object matches

Use: It is used in DB session handling , we fetch object from serialized input from files, Database ..etc. when unserialise it best practice to validate that object .

Regular Expression

We use PHp comparision

PHP function

  /**
  * compares two any kind of values ,stictly
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_matches($val, $value)
  {
  return ($val === $value);
 
  }

Validation for String lenght maximum

Use: in mostly forms we must validate the input value for maximum length, cause Mysql VARACHAR(255) supports.

Regular Expression

We use PHP comparision

PHP function

  /**
  * check string length exceeds maximum length     
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_maxlength($val, $max)
  {
  return (strlen($val) <= (int)$max);
  }

Validation for number maximum value

Use: It is most common validation againest numbers

Regular Expression

We use PHP comparision

PHP function

  /**
  * check given number exceeds max values   
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_maxvalue($number,$max)
  {
  return ($number >$max);
 
  }

Validate md5 String

Use: in mostly case we use md5 for secret data passing and key , password validation.

md5 string Regular Expression

/[0-9a-f]{32}/i

PHP function

  /**
  * Checks that a field matches a v2 md5 string
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_md5($val)
  {
  return (bool)preg_match("/[0-9a-f]{32}/i", $val);
 
  }

Validation for String minimum length

Use: in mostly forms we must validate the input value for maximum length, cause Mysql VARACHAR(255) supports.

PHP function

  /**
  *Check the string length has minimum length
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_minlength($val, $min)
  {
  return (strlen($val) >= (int)$min);
 
  }

Validation for number minimum value

Use : mostly forms elements we check this validation, example in registration form we ask user age.

Regular Expression

We use PHP comparision

PHP function

  /**
  * check given number below value   
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_minvalue($number)
  {
  return ($number < $max);
 
  }

Validation for multy line characters.

Use: some times ,we need to strip or validate the new line characters.

Regular Expression

/[\n\r\t]+/

PHP function

  /**
  * check given sring has multilines 
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_multiline($val)
  {
  return (bool)preg_match("/[\n\r\t]+/", $val);
 
  }

Validation for numeric

Use: validate given input string is numeric with optional +,-,. values

Regular Expression

/^[\-+]?[0-9]*\.?[0-9]+$/

PHP function

  /**
  * check a number optional -,+,. values
  * @param   string        
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_numeric($val)
  {
  return (bool)preg_match('/^[\-+]?[0-9]*\.?[0-9]+$/', $val);
 
  }

Validate for Phone Number

Use: validate given input is phone number

PHP function

  /**
  * Matches a phone number that length optional numbers 7,10,11
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_phone($number, $lengths = null)
  {
  if (!is_array($lengths)) {
  $lengths = array(7, 10, 11);
  }
  $number = preg_replace('/\D+/', '', $number);
  return in_array(strlen($number), $lengths);
 
  }

Validate Pincode

Use: validate given input is phone number

Regular Expression

We used more than one regular expression depending on countries

PHP function

  /**
  * Checks that given value matches following country pin codes.     
  * at = austria
  * au = australia
  * ca = canada
  * de = german
  * ee = estonia
  * nl = netherlands
  * it = italy
  * pt = portugal
  * se = sweden
  * uk = united kingdom
  * us = united states
  * @param String   
  * @param String
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_pincode($val, $country = 'us')
  {
  $patterns = array('at' => '^[0-9]{4,4}$', 'au' => '^[2-9][0-9]{2,3}$', 'ca' =>
  '^[a-zA-Z].[0-9].[a-zA-Z].\s[0-9].[a-zA-Z].[0-9].', 'de' => '^[0-9]{5,5}$', 'ee' =>
  '^[0-9]{5,5}$', 'nl' => '^[0-9]{4,4}\s[a-zA-Z]{2,2}$', 'it' => '^[0-9]{5,5}$',
  'pt' => '^[0-9]{4,4}-[0-9]{3,3}$', 'se' => '^[0-9]{3,3}\s[0-9]{2,2}$', 'uk' =>
  '^([A-Z]{1,2}[0-9]{1}[0-9A-Z]{0,1}) ?([0-9]{1}[A-Z]{1,2})$', 'us' =>
  '^[0-9]{5,5}[\-]{0,1}[0-9]{4,4}$');
  if (!array_key_exists($country, $patterns))
  return false;
  return (bool)preg_match("/" . $patterns[$country] . "/", $val);
 
 
  }

Validation for string lenght is with in range of given lengths

Use : This is the most common validation again user input values.

Regular Expression:

Here we used PHP handy functions.

PHP function

  /**
     * check given string length is between given range 
     * @param   string   
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_rangelength($val, $min = '', $max = '')
    {
        return (strlen($val) >= $min and strlen($val) <= $max);
    }

Validation for given integer value between given two values

Use : This is the most common validation again user input values.

Regular Expression:

Here we used PHP handy functions.

PHP function

   /**
     * check given number between given values
     * @param   string   
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_rangevalue($number,$min,$max)
    {
        return ($number > $min and $number < $max);
 
    }

Validation input value againest given regex

Use: in some cases we have use custom regular expression.

Regular Expression:

Here we used PHP handy functions.

PHP function

   /**
     * check given number between given values
     * @param   string   
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_rangevalue($number,$min,$max)
    {
        return ($number > $min and $number < $max);
 
    }

Validation for rgb colour value

use: we validate the user input is RGB color

rgb color Regular Expression:

/^(rgb\(\s*\b([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])\b\s*,\s*\b([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])\b\s*,\s*\b([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])\b\s*\))|(rgb\(\s*(\d?\d%|100%)+\s*,\s*(\d?\d%|100%)+\s*,\s*(\d?\d%|100%)+\s*\))$/

PHP function

   /**
     * Check is rgb color value
     * @param   string   
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_rgb($val)
    {
        return (bool)preg_match("/^(rgb\(\s*\b([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])\b\s*,\s*\b([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])\b\s*,\s*\b([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])\b\s*\))|(rgb\(\s*(\d?\d%|100%)+\s*,\s*(\d?\d%|100%)+\s*,\s*(\d?\d%|100%)+\s*\))$/",
            $val);
    }

Validate time 12 hours format

use: Validate for 12 hours format time

12 hours format Regular Expression:

/^([1-9]|1[0-2]|0[1-9]){1}(:[0-5][0-9][aApP][mM]){1}$/

PHP function

   /**
     * Time in 12 hours format with optional seconds
     * 08:00AM | 10:00am | 7:00pm
     * @param   string         
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_time12($val)
    {
        return (bool)preg_match("/^([1-9]|1[0-2]|0[1-9]){1}(:[0-5][0-9][aApP][mM]){1}$/",
            $val);
    }

Validation for 24 hours format time

use: Validate for 24 hours format time

24 hours time format Regular Expression:

/^(([0-1]?[0-9])|([2][0-3])):([0-5]?[0-9])(:([0-5]?[0-9]))?$/

PHP function

  /**
     * Time in 24 hours format with optional seconds
     * 12:15 | 10:26:59 | 22:01:15 
     * @param   string         
     * @return  boolean
     */
 
    function is_time24($val)
    {
        return (bool)preg_match("/^(([0-1]?[0-9])|([2][0-3])):([0-5]?[0-9])(:([0-5]?[0-9]))?$/",
            $val);
    }

Validation for time zone format

use: Validate time zone format GMT

GMT time zone Regular Expression:

/^[-+]((0[0-9]|1[0-3]):([03]0|45)|14:00)$/

PHP function

  /**
     * Checks given value matches a time zone  
     * +00:00 | -05:00 
     * @param   string         
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_timezone($val)
    {
        return (bool)preg_match("/^[-+]((0[0-9]|1[0-3]):([03]0|45)|14:00)$/", $val);
    }

Validation for token

use: A token that don’t have white spaces.

Regular Expression:

/\s/

PHP function

 /**
     * A token that don't have any white space
     * @param   string   
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_token($val)
    {
        return (bool)!preg_match('/\s/', $val);
 
    }

Validate unique array elements

Use: in some times we ask user multiple choices ,so these elements are unique are not!!

PHP function

 /**
     * check if array has unique elements,it must have  minimum one element
     * @param   string   
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_unique($arr)
    {
        $arr = (array )$arr;
        $count1 = count($arr);
        $count2 = count(array_unique($arr));
        return (count1 != 0 and (count1 == $count2));
    }

Validation for input value is Upper case

Use: in experience i didn’t got any chance to validate this ,but it is may use full for others.

Regular Expression

/^[A-Z]+$/

PHP function

   /**
     * Given string is upper cased?
     * @param   string   
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_upper($val)
    {
        return (bool)preg_match("/^[A-Z]+$/", $val);
 
    }

Validation for URL

Use: validate given input is URL format

Regular Expression

PHP function

  /**
     * Valid URL or web address
     * @param   string      
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_url($val)
    {
        return (bool)preg_match("^((((https?|ftps?|gopher|telnet|nntp):\/\/)|(mailto:|news:))(%[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}|[-()_.!~*';\/?:@&=+$,A-Za-z0-9])+)([).!';\/?:,][[:blank:]])?$",
            $val);
 
    }

Validate URL exists

Use: some times given we need If URL works or not

PHP function

  /**
     * Check given url really exists?
     * @param   string   
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_urlexists($link)
    {
 
        return (bool)@fsockopen($link, 80, $errno, $errstr, 30);
 
    }

Validation for US Social security number

Use : validate the user input is valid US social security number format

US social security number Regular Expression:

/^\d{3}-\d{2}-\d{4}$/

PHP function

   /**
     * Checks given value matches us citizen social security number
     * @param   string         
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_usssn($val)
    {
        return (bool)preg_match("/^\d{3}-\d{2}-\d{4}$/", $val);
    }

Validation for utf8

Use: given file input string is UTF8 format

Regular Expression

PHP function

   /**
     * check given sting is UTF8 
     * @param   string  
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_utf8($val)
    {
        return preg_match('%(?:
        [\xC2-\xDF][\x80-\xBF]        
        |\xE0[\xA0-\xBF][\x80-\xBF]               
        |[\xE1-\xEC\xEE\xEF][\x80-\xBF]{2}     
        |\xED[\x80-\x9F][\x80-\xBF]               
        |\xF0[\x90-\xBF][\x80-\xBF]{2}   
        |[\xF1-\xF3][\x80-\xBF]{3}                  
        |\xF4[\x80-\x8F][\x80-\xBF]{2}    
        )+%xs', $val);
 
    }

Use: i have noticed my tutorials are directly copied on other blogs without informing, i spent some man hours doing this , if you want refer please send me back link.

Download the code

60 validation functions with php

mahesh chari — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:48:01 +0000

Hello my readers, after one month of hard work , i created a validation class and made a complete tutorial with 60 php validation methods in PHP. here each functions works independently. These methods are used in every kind of web applications. even i written the functions in PHP, you can use them in Javascript also by taking regular expression directly. If any method i missing ,fixing or you get idea for implementing and adding here please contact me.we can use this php class in form validation.

Download the code

PHP validation functions

validation for alpha characters

Use: It validates only Alphabets i.e small and capital letters. Input parameter must be trimmed ,it won’t allow spaces also.

Regular Expression

/^([a-zA-Z])+$/i

Regular Expression has case insensitive modifier.

PHP function

   /**
     * Matches only alpha letters
     * @param   string   
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_alpha($val)
    {
        return (bool)preg_match("/^([a-zA-Z])+$/i", $val);
 
    }

Valid parameters

Mahesh
chari
PHP

Invalid parameters

Mahesh1
cha2ri
PHP5.0.2

validation for alphadash characters

Use: It validates only Alphabets and dashes (under score, dash) i.e small , capital letters,_,-. Input parameter must be trimmed ,it won’t allow spaces also.

Regular Expression

/^([a-zA-Z_-])+$/i

Regular Expression has case insensitive modifier.

PHP function

   /**
     * Matches alpha and dashes like -,_
     * @param   string  
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_alphadash($val)
    {
        return (bool)preg_match("/^([A-Za-z_-])+$/i", $val);
 
    }

Valid parameters

Mahesh
chari_
PHP_OOPS

Invalid parameters

Mahesh1
cha2ri
PHP5.0.2
$_POST

validate alpha numeric characters

Use: It validates only Alphabets and dashes (under score, dash) i.e small , capital letters,_,-. Input parameter must be trimmed ,it won’t allow spaces also.

alpha numeric characters regular Expression

/^([a-zA-Z0-9])+$/i

Regular Expression has case insensitive modifier.

PHP function

  /**
     * Matches alpha and numbers only
     * @param   string   
     * @return  boolean
     */
    function is_alphanumeric($val)
    {
        return (bool)preg_match("/^([a-zA-Z0-9])+$/i", $val);
 
    }

Valid parameters

Mahesh
chari
PHP OOPS

Invalid parameters

PHP5.0.2
$_POST

validation for ascii input from a file

Use: It is very important to work with multi language application , we must validate for utf-8, ascii characters.

ascii string format validate Regular Expression

  /[^\x00-\x7F]/i

PHP function

  /**
  * is given string is ascii format?
  * @param   string        
  * @return  boolean
  */
 
  function is_ascii($val)
  {
  return !preg_match('/[^\x00-\x7F]/i', $val);
  }

Valid parameter

We can’t display file specific characters here . just test with note pad text.

Invalid parameter

We can’t display file specific characters here . just test with note pad text.

base64 string Validation

Use: Generelly we encrypt the URL parameters with base64_encode and base64_decode from end users,while validating with sessions,passing secrate data. Then we must check that parameter string for valid base64 encoding.

base64 string Regular Expression

  /[^a-zA-Z0-9\/\+=]/

PHP function

  /**
  * Matches base64 enoding string
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_base64($val)
  {
  return (bool)!preg_match('/[^a-zA-Z0-9\/\+=]/', $val);
 
  }

Valid parameter

base64 encoded string

Invalid parameter

non base64 encoded string

Validation for boolean or Bool type

Use: Generelly we use so many type values for number (1,0), strings (‘yes’,'no’),(’1′,’0′),bool (true,false)

PHP function

Custom function that validates informal and formal type of boolean.

  /**
  * is given field is boolean value or not
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_boolean($val)
  {
  $booleans = array(1, 0, '1', '0', true, false, true, false);
  $literals = array('true', 'false', 'yes', 'no');
  foreach ($booleans as $bool) {
  if ($val === $bool)
  return true;
  }
 
  return in_array(strtolower($val), $literals);
  }

PHP core function

is_bool() can be used

Valid parameter

1,0,’yes’,'no’,true,false

Invalid parameter

any different paramenter from the above.

Validate credit card number

Use: E-Commerce applications uses,for user credit card validation.

credit card validation Regular Expression

/^((4\d{3})|(5[1-5]\d{2})|(6011)|(7\d{3}))-?\d{4}-?\d{4}-?\d{4}|3[4,7]\d{13}$/

credit card validation php function

  /**
  * Valid Credit Card
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_creditcard($val)
  {
  return (bool)preg_match("/^((4\d{3})|(5[1-5]\d{2})|(6011)|(7\d{3}))-?\d{4}-?\d{4}-?\d{4}|3[4,7]\d{13}$/",
  $val);
 
  }

Validation for date any format

Use: While validating time event dependent applications like organising,appointment..etc application we use date validation.

PHP function

  /**
  * Check if given string matches any format date
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_date($val)
  {
  return (strtotime($val) !== false);
 
  }

Validation for dateDe [d.m.y]

Use: While validating time event dependent applications like organising,appointment..etc application we use date validation.

date de validation Regular Expression

/^\d\d?\.\d\d?\.\d\d\d?\d?$/

PHP function

  /**
  * Checks given value matches date de
  * @param   string         
  * @return  boolean
  */
 
  function is_dateDE($date)
  {
  return (bool)preg_match("/^\d\d?\.\d\d?\.\d\d\d?\d?$/", $date);
  }

Validation for dateISO

Use: While validating time event dependent applications like organising,appointment..etc application we use date validation.

iso date Regular Expression

/^\d{4}[\/-]\d{1,2}[\/-]\d{1,2}$/

PHP validate date iso function

  /**
  * Checks given value matches us citizen social security number
  * @param   string         
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_dateISO($date)
  {
  return (bool)preg_match("/^\d{4}[\/-]\d{1,2}[\/-]\d{1,2}$/", $date);
  }

Validation for decimal

Use: Validation while processing ecommerce form for money values.

decimal validation Regular Expression

/^\d+(\.\d{1,6})?$/

PHP function

  /**
  * check decimal with . is optional and after decimal places up to 6th precision
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_decimal($val)
  {
  return (bool)preg_match("/^\d+(\.\d{1,6})?$/'", $val);
 
  }

Validation for email address

Use: validation on user registration ,contact forms.

email address validation Regular Expression

/^([a-z0-9\+_\-]+)(\.[a-z0-9\+_\-]+)*@([a-z0-9\-]+\.)+[a-z]{2,6}$/ix

PHP email address validation function

  /**
  * valid email     
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_email($val)
  {
  return (bool)(preg_match("/^([a-z0-9\+_\-]+)(\.[a-z0-9\+_\-]+)*@([a-z0-9\-]+\.)+[a-z]{2,6}$/ix",
  $val));
 
  }

validate email domain exists

Use: validation on user registration ,contact forms. Before testing this function check it is valid email.

email Regular Expression

/^[^@]++@/

PHP function

  /**
  * Checks that a field is exactly the right length.
  * @param   string   value
  * @link  http://php.net/checkdnsrr  not added to Windows until PHP 5.3.0
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_emaildomain($email)
  {
  return (bool)checkdnsrr(preg_replace('/^[^@]++@/', '', $email), 'MX');
 
  }

Validation for empty input for all type

Use: validate the input parameter that is string ,boolean,array ,object, null .etc types also for empty

PHP validate function

  /**
  * check if field empty string ,orject,array
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_empty($val)
  {
  return in_array($val, array(null, false, '', array(),(object)array()), true);
 
  }

Validation for enum

Use: we need to check a value for fixed number of specified values only, takes a input value and compares the given array, it is alias of in_array PHP function

PHP function

  /**
  * check given string againest given array values
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_enum($val, $arr)
  {
  return in_array($val, $arr);
 
  }

Validation for variable exists

Use: check if a array key element exists.

PHP function

  /**
  * check given array key element exists?
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
 
  function is_exists($val, $arr)
  {
  return isset($arr[$val]);
 
  }

Validate hexa decimal color

Use: validate the given value for hexa decimal color format

hexa decimal color Regular Expression

/^#?+[0-9a-f]{3}(?:[0-9a-f]{3})?$/i

PHP function

  /**
  * Valid hexadecimal color ,that may have #,
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_hexcolor($color)
  {
  return (bool)preg_match('/^#?+[0-9a-f]{3}(?:[0-9a-f]{3})?$/i', $color);
 
  }

Validate html tags

Use: It is best practice to validate our forms textarea elements data againest HTML content ,before we displaying HTML with Mysql data. If we don’t validate this will override our Web page template layout.

HTML tag Regular Expression

/<(.*)>.*<$1>/

PHP HTML tag validation function

  /**
  * given sting has html tags?
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_htmlsafe($val)
  {
  return (bool)(!preg_match("/<(.*)>.*
  <$1>
  /", $val));
 
  }

Validation for integer

Use: validate integer

validate input for integer php function

  /**
  *Matches exactly number
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_integer($val)
  {
  return is_int($val);
 
  }

Validate ip address

Use: It is best practice to validate user remote address with PHP , in some times user may comes as anonymus i.e Proxy enabled . it is best used in IP bound applications like polling, affiliate marketing applications..

ip address validation Regular Expression

/<(.*)>.*<$1>/

ip address validate php function

  /**
  * Valid IP address
  * @param   string   
  * @return  boolean
  */
  function is_ipaddress($val)
  {
  return (bool)preg_match("/^(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)$/",
  $val);
 
  }

Download the code

php template system

mahesh chari — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 09:45:12 +0000

A basic template engine that seperates the business logic from display logic.

The basic idea of this template system is to implement a light weight MVC patter.We use only two PHP functions

ob_start();
ob_get_clean();

Advantages:

With this php template system we can include nested templates also.
since this php template system does directly php code it performs much faster.
very light weight.

ob_start()

This function will turn output buffering on. While output buffering is active no output is sent from the script (other than headers), instead the output is stored in an internal buffer. This buffer can be retrived to a string variable using ob_get_contents().

ob_get_clean()

Gets the current buffer contents and delete current output buffer. this buffer in turn returns as a string like ob_get_contents().

To test this template system download the example files and see the example1.php,example2.php

Template Class

 
class template
{
    function template()
    {
    }
 
    function get($path, $params = array())
    {
        ob_start();
        extract($params);
        include ($path);
        return ob_get_clean();
    }
}

Example

include 'template.class.php';
$tpl=new template();
$tvars=array();
$tvars['name']='Mahesh';
$tvars['arrayvars']=array(
array(1,'Apple'),
array(2,'Mango'),
array(3,'Banana')
);
 
$tvars['nestedtemplate']=$tpl->get('template.nest.tpl.php',array());
 
echo $tpl->get('template2.tpl.php',$tvars);

Dowload the example

Output

email domain really exists

mahesh chari — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 07:28:44 +0000

How to check users email address domain really exists?

We know how spam bothers much on contact pages of web application,even we use captcha ,there will be manually generated spam.
And we don’t know given email address is fake or real.

Good thing is that we can check is given email address fake or not with php .For this PHP has handy function that checks the email domain for real time exists.

Bad thing is that this function is not bundled until 5.3 on windows server.

checkdnsrr

function is_emaildomain($email)
 {
 return (bool)checkdnsrr(preg_replace('/^[^@]++@/', '', $email), 'MX');
 }