You can find the "word" generic character type used in a lot of PHP code including the Zend Framework. The problem is that the assumption above is incorrect. Now, most of the time these act identically because PHP is compiled using its own packaged PCRE library. However, I've seen more than once systems where this is not the case. Usually in some non-English capacity where additional locale support was considered necessary or standard practice.

The problem comes when PHP is compiled against a custom PCRE library, making it more locale-aware. He gives instructions on how to get this to a testable state on your environment (using an updated PREC library) and get it working for characters in French, like the accented "a" or "e".

As far as I know this is the first full English language translation and update of the work done by the Association Francaise des Utilisateurs de PHP (French PHP Users Group). Also there is a lot of new content in the Whitepaper that with regards to how PHP is now utilised in Enterprise. Figures have been updated and techniques available in later versions of PHP have been referenced.

He mentions some of the challenges in the translation and thanks a few others for the effort and contributions they made to the project. The whitepaper (pdf) looks at several key topics of PHP in the Enterprise including: suggestions for architecture, integration issues, concurrent use with other languages and how PHP fits into the web application ecosystem.

Weighing in at around 450 pages, the contents table is replete with all the topics one would expect including chapters on MVC in the Zend Framework, all the typical components, and appendices (a lot of appendices!) on topics like MVC Theory, Subversion, Databases, Object Oriented Programming, Testing with PHPUnit, etc. It's a very complete book that should be suitable even for absolute beginners to PHP web application frameworks, or anyone visiting from Ruby/Python/Java.

You can find the book at a local (French) bookseller or it can be ordered online from someplace like Amazon.fr.

A new block has appeared today on top right corner of the php-gtk.eu pages, with three little flags : they show you can now navigate the site in one of these languages and, more importantly, automatically find the translated versions of all articles when they exist ... or contribute one yourself if you are logged in to the site.

Right now they offer English, French and German and they're still working on translating some parts of the UI of the site, but the articles and content should be translated over just fine.

These chapters covers everything you need to get started. If you are a developer, you can read all chapters, from 1 to 4. If you are more a web designer, then you probably only need to read chapter 3 to learn how to layout forms.

They've also been translated into French and can be found here. Content includes form creation, validation, Propel integration, nested forms, internationalization and some of the bundled widgets and validators that come with the framework.

• The team at developpez.com have created a French version of his Zend_Auth tutorial - Débutez avec le Zend Framework
• A link to some handy tips on combining the Getting Started tutorial with Oracle.

Both of these tutorials are found on Rob's site - Getting Started with the Zend Framework and Getting Started with Zend_Auth.

My tutorial is now available in French thanks to Guillaume Rossolini!

Speaking of course of his Getting Started guide to the Zend Framework. The guide walks you through the installation, structure, setup, and creation of a simple application within the framework (displaying/updating/adding to an album listing).

Two upcoming events may be of great interest for symfony fans. The French PHP User association (AFUP) organizes a conference about symfony 1.0 in Paris. [...] Also, the PHP Quebec Conference features two sessions about symfony, one in English and one in French.

The Paris confernece is happening on March 6th and the PHP Quebec Conference March 14th through the 16th in Montreal.

In this issue, they talk about:

• Stored procedures and functions in MySQL
• Advanced Development with SQLite
• Logging and Monitoring with log4php
• and an Interview with Marc Delisle

Check out the full description for all of the contents in this issue. Plus, there's a link to the sample article for this month, "Logging and Monitoring with log4php".]]> Wed, 21 Dec 2005 13:41:09 -0600