PHP Function I frquently use

October 5, 2007 at 11:06 pm · Filed under Codes

While developing the web applications with PHP I have made my own small function library. In this library I have few functions that I use very frequently. One of the functions that is used more often is echo_d(). The purpose of this function is to check a variable to see if it is empty or not set; then based on the check result it either prints a default value or the value of the variable.

This is a simple function that saves me a lot of time and keeps my main codes cleaner. So here it is.

function echo_d($var, $def)
{
$var = trim($var);
echo ((isset($var)) && (!empty($var))) ? $var : $def;
}

When to use this function? One of the most common places I use this function is in the reports. When I am generating reports for anything I always have to check whether certain value is in the database; it prints a default value if it cannot find one. The usage of this function in the scenario is something like:

$lastLoginDate = $rowsFromDB['last_login_date'];

echo_d($lastLoginDate, “—”);

This function can be expanded to make it more versatile but I have found this tiny little function very useful.

–
Thank you.

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Javascript: Select Multiple Dropdown Items

December 20, 2006 at 8:27 am · Filed under Codes

If you would like to have a multiple select dropdown and want to use the selection in a specified format, then here is the solution. Sometimes you may need to create a query string value or fill in a textbox or textarea with the selected values. Say for example you have a dropdown list where you can select multiple items. Upon selecting each option you want to fill in a textarea with the selected value.

Example:

HTML Part:

<form method=POST name='testing'>
  <select name='testsel' multiple onchange='showselection()'>
    <option value="one">one</option>
    <option value="two">two</option>
    <option value="three">three</option>
  </select>
  <textarea id="txtEditions"></textarea>
</form>

Javascript Part:

<script language='javascript'>
  function showselection()
  {
    var frm = document.testing
    var opt = frm.testsel

    var numofoptions = opt.length
    var selValue = new Array

    var j = 0
    for (i=0; i<numofoptions; i++)
    {
      if (opt[i].selected === true)
      {
        selValue[j] = opt[i].value
        j++
      }
    }

    selValue = selValue.join(”+”)

    document.getElementById(”txtEditions”).innerHTML = selValue
  }
</script>

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