Today I wanted to debug one of my php codes. As I’m fairly new to php I haven’t used any debugging mechanisms. So I had a little googling and  found out the most preferred way is to  have x-debug setup with NetBeans.

even though the setup is fairly easy, I had to make use of several resources in several different locations. So I thought of summing up everything in an one place will help someone.

For this guide, my set up is as follows

I’m on linux, with apache2, php5 and NetBeans (6.9.1) .  I assume you all have php running on your apache server

Ok lets starts.

1 - download the xdebug (http://www.xdebug.org/download.php).  
make sure you download the correct (or most matching) source.  (I downloaded the source file)

2 - extract the source  file to any directory you want and browse to
that directory

3 -  while you are inside that xdebug directory type 'phpize' in your console.  
you should see something like following

Configuring for:

 PHP Api Version:   20041225

 Zend Module Api No:      20060613

 Zend Extension Api No:   220060519

But if at all you get an error like 'bash: phpize: command not found' that means you are missing the '
php-devel' package. to install it run 'apt-get install php5-dev' as root

4 - Once done run ./configure
5 - and make and make install (building the xdebug is their in the README file)
6 - after you run the above command you will get 'xdebug.so' which is under <your xdebug folder>/modules
7 - copy that in to any place you want.
8 - then open-up your php.ini file
    if you cant locate this file, best way is to create a php file in any name (in my case index.php) and add the 
following php code to it. <?php phpinfo(); ?> , then view it using the browser. that page should display where is your
active php.ini file is located.
9 - open that file and add the followings

zend_extension = "/home/sameera/tools/web/xdebug/xdebug.so"
xdebug.remote_enable=on
xdebug.remote_log="/var/log/xdebug.log"
xdebug.remote_host=localhost
xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp
xdebug.remote_port=9000

**** zend_extension path should be same as the path you have your xdebug.so
Thats it. restart apache and load your php.ini file. Then you should see a separate section for ‘XDebug’. By this time you should
be able to start debug your applications with NetBeans.

• open NetBeans
• open your php prject
• add a break point
• run your project in debug mode

http://www.slideshare.net/ihower/rails-best-practices

enjoy

(Please note – I’m talking about ubuntu here, If you are on  windows then try Ubuntu )

Then ruby gems will create a new file called ‘gem1.8′ and it will conflict with your older ‘gem’ file. You can find both these files in /usr/bin

So when ever you say gem list (or something with gem) it gives the error ‘/usr/bin/gem:11: undefined method `manage_gems’ for Gem:Module (NoMethodError)’

As a workaround ,  I have done following and it worked for me. My solution was to create a symbolic between ‘gem’ file and ‘gem1.8′ file.

Here’s how I did it,

first copy your ‘gem’ file (as a backup)

cp /usr/bin/gem /<my other path>/

Now delete the ‘gem’ file

sudo rm -f /usr/bin/gem

OK, now create the symbolic link

ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/bin/gem

Thats it, now time something like

gem list and it should work.

Hope this quick note will help

With  a little bit of googling I came across the solution,  This mostly happens because of the sending recipients,

Mostly you have mistyped the e-mail address (es),  In my case, my recipients list was like this

email1@google.com, email2.yahoo.com,

and the last ‘,’ had caused the problem, So I changed it to

email1@google.com, email2.yahoo.com

and everything was back to normal

Following links are also useful to have a look

http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk/browse_thread/thread/62e0bafc916a46a6/b0b672c0db4974b9?lnk=raot&pli=1

http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/79053

def new

@project = Project.find(params[:project_id])

end

– here my new action is expecting a parameter called project_id to load a project. And in down deep in my controller I have a create method. There I’m going to save a user object for a given project.  I want it to save with out a problem and if so it will redirect to root url and if not it should render the new action again (with error messages).

def create

if @user.save

#if user object successfully saved then redirect

redirect_to root_url

else

#but if saving failed then redirect beck to new action.

render :action => ‘index’,  :params => { :project_id => <project id> }

end

end

But this render action fails. Problem is even though we pass the parameters rails actually dont run the action method again (http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/11037), so your parameters will not be used anyware.

Is there any alternative ?

Yes, there are many, and one would be loading the required objects before render the action again. So as per my example it should adjust like,

def create

if @user.save

#if user object successfully saved then redirect

redirect_to root_url

else

#lets load the project object before rendering the action

@project = Project.find(<project id>)

render :action => ‘index’

end

end

this would do the trick ,  Hope this helps.. 

Users ->

Jhon

-> a.svn

seena

-> b.svn

And my requirement was to  remove all the svn folders. So heres how i did that (this code spinet was given one of my collegues). And heres how you can do it

go to the required folder (Ex: Users)

and open up a command prompt

type this command

find . -name “*.svn” -exec rm -rf ‘{}’ \;

and that should do the magic

So let me explain the command

find . -name “*.svn” -exec rm -rf ‘{}’ \;

find -> will find the files we are requesting

.      -> means the current folder (you can give any folder you want)

-name  -> what is the characteristic to find (in this case its find by name)

“<you files>”  -> name of the files (*.svn means all the files which has .svn extension)

-exec              -> this will execute the next command which we give

rm                -> remove command

-rf                -> r means recursive (since these are folders) and f means FORCE since .svn files are read only

‘{}’               -> this tells the system to get what ever the parameters which sent by our earlier find command

\                 -> do this action recursively

hope this helps

open up a command prompt

type -> mysqladmin -u root -p password ‘root’

where

root – is the root user

password – your new password (its again root in the above example)

and hit enter

it will prompt you to enter your current password (of root)

enter the current password

thats it

Today we have created a new user group for ruby-rails in Sri lanka – You can fined if here

http://groups.google.com/group/rubyologists

twitter -> http://twitter.com/rubyologists

Main motivation behind this is to spread the ruby language  among sri lankan developers and make the awareness.. Another main thing we would like to achieve is to share our knowledge through  monthly meetings..

Almost anybody can join and all are welcome…

Hope this will be a good start for all of us

This is just a quick post about how to pass parameters to rails partials. (As most of you all know, partials are lightweight than components) and personally I’m using it in my project as headers and footers.

But if we are to pass some parameters to the partial how to do that ?? its simple as this

render :partial => “<partial name>”, :locals => { :param1 => “value”}

<partial name> – name of your partial (Ex /partials/footer)

:params1 – parameter name

“value” – value

Its quick and simple