It's pretty rare that I encounter a bug in the software I run that hampers my ability to work or my server environment's ability to function normally. However, I encountered one last week that has taken me and several Rackspace support technicians nearly a week to figure out, namely PHP bug #43677.

The issue was that PHP seemed to be "forgetting" the include_path in the current script (not Apache). The bug has been found in PHP 5.2.5 (and possible in all of the 5.2.x releases as well). The problem has been fixed in the latest CVS version and a patch has been created for those that want to correct the problem right away.

What you SHOULD get back is a string describing your old include path. If you get false, you have hit the problem I hit last night. I went so far as to recompile 2 difference versions of Apache thinking (almost correctly) that it was something that had changed in my Apache config files.

If you're one of the "falsers" out there, check out the rest of his post of his solution around the problem. His problem stemmed from his trying to reassign a php_admin_value (instead of php_value where the script could override it) setting, specifically the one for the include_path.

He also points out that Zend Framework users might keep an eye out for this problem too as the Zend_Loader package changes the include path at times.

So, youâ'™re an up-and-coming PHP developer, youâ'™re spending a lot of time learning new tricks and youâ'™re always on the bleeding edge when it comes to using technologies in your web applications. Whatâ'™s next?

His four answers to "what's next" are:

• Read books, write code.
• Attend conferences
• Take courses and qualification tests
• Watch the web

...with the final one being his most important.

• NiceHead helper with autoloading of javascript and css - Injects CSS/JS into the head tag in your layout and autoloads css/js files for you based on current controller and action.
• Multiple rules of validation per field in CakePHP 1.2 - On this article we'll take a look at multiple rules of validation per field, and how easy it is to use them on our 1.2 models.
• Rewrite a plugin's paths to look nicer - Plugins are a fantastic and vastly underused tool in CakePHP! But their default paths can be strange sometimes. This article describes how to rewrite a plugin's paths using bootstrap.php.

Check out these and more great CakePHP-related tutorials on The Bakery!

PHP user streams are amazing - they're powerful, fun, and make things like a templating system with filters and multiple back ends quick and easy.

Here's a little "test script" that shows you how to implement contexts for your streams. What are contexts? They're resources that hold additional information. Built in php streams, such as the ftp streams, already have contexts you can set. But they're also great to use in your own user land streams.

In the test script, she shows how to open a stream to a few different resources (including passing parameters and user information), grabbing the contents of each.

To aid you, I have put together this guide which covers *every* default extension that comes with PHP5 and tells you how to get it working on Windows, what dependencies they have and also some vital tips on how you need to arrange your php.ini file and file system to ensure a painless set-up and no messy DLL conflicts.

He lays it all out in a series of two steps - getting everything all set up to make it work (including the value for the extension_dir setting and how to change your PATH variable) and the list of extensions and the DLL files they require.

The reason is simple - libraries want to include files relative to library top directory, and do not want to count on include path. And relative include resolution rules in PHP not clear to all, so people prefer to be sure. The downside here is that this expression is dynamic - executed at run-time. Meaning it's slower and less toolable and also makes a bad habit of putting dynamic things into include (which is not a problem here, since itâ'™s "static dynamic" thing, but still a bad habit).

His suggestion has merit, and, according to the comments on the post, the reception seems like it would be positive.

All is fine if you place your helpers either within the zend framework's own helpers folder (not a good idea) or within a directory in your site structure. The problem arises if you place the helpers in a folder in the PHP include path and don't know the full path to the folder.

He investigates why this might happen, tracking it down to some include issues despite mimicking the structure the Zend Framework itself recommends. Unfortunately, this still requires knowing the full path to the helper, not the relative. Unfortunately, that's just not what he needs.

So, he set out to find a solution and ended up with two - one that makes a modification to the Zend_View_Abstract class and the other is to extend the Zend_View class with his own custom class handling the pathing to pull the helper in correctly.

In the php.ini file used by the PHP5 executable, the include path is hosed. If you installed in the default location and are running Windows, you'll probably find the file at: C:Program FilesZendZendStudio-5.5.0binphp5php.ini

The problem is that the value of include_path isn't wrapped in quotes, making portions of it act like a comment and "hose" your directory path. Thankfully, it's a pretty simple fix - just quote the value and be on your merry way. It's one of those bugs that has the potential to be so small that it'd be very frustrating to find.

A little release to help windows users to work with broken zip entries named like "a/b//c.txt". PHP 5.1+ mkdir does not support such path on windows and simply refuses to create the base dir. The """bug""" has been fixed in php 5.2 or earlier and a work around exists in zip itself for earlier versions.

You can grab this latest update directly from the project's homepage.