SplPriorityQueue is a fantastic new feature of PHP 5.3. However, in trying to utilize it in a few projects recently, I've run into some behavior that's (a) non-intuitive, and (b) in some cases at least, undesired. In this post, I'll present my solutions.

He talks about the "first in, first out" nature of queues and how it differs from a stack (including links to some of the other SPL offerings for both). He then moves into the problems he was seeing - that iteration removes values from the heap and the unexpected order of equal values in the queue. To solve the first problem, he creates an "outer iterator" that creates an "innerQueue" that's protected. The solution for the second issue - the random queue order - is a simple one: priority indexes aren't required to be integers. Strings can be substituted to help make things a bit more unique.

There are a few times I've gotten this particular exception and then look at the trace and can't figure out what's wrong. More often than not, I'll get to the line in the trace and be like, "wtf! there's no priority here. It's a method call not a constant". [...] So to save myself and others some time and aggrevation, I'm going to go into a bit of detail as to why you may be getting this exception.

As it turns out, the Zend_Log exception was caused by the components overloading of the __call function to allow for some custom handling. Chance sees this issues as an example of "flexibility leading to complications that require complex understanding".

A Content Management System (CMS) provides a straightforward way to maintain a web site, allowing site owners to include interactive features such as article publishing, file uploads and sharing, forums and blogs with a minimum of coding. And a good CMS will also allow extensive customization to the site's layout and appearance, so it doesn't end up looking like thousands of other sites built on top of the same code base.

The look at a few of the priorities to consider - multi-author support, metadata management, ease of use - as well as technology and business considerations. Systems they look at in their overview include Joomla, Drupal, Mabo and Plone.

If there is no logging mechanism, then if there's a goof-up in a production environment, you have absolutely no idea what went wrong. The only thing which a support developer can do in this case is to reproduce the issue at the developer end, which sometimes work and sometimes don't.

The look at the types of logging (trace logs, audit logs and user logging/history) and create a simple class that allows flexibility for file location, priority and timstamping. Their script contains a writelog method that does all the work (including pushing it through the PEAR logging class).

Options included "Magic Methods", "IDE's" and "Database Support" but the number one option that got the most votes by far was "Classes". This left second ("All" at 19.3 percent) and third ("Database Support" at 8.4 percent) place in the dust.

If you're a CodeIgniter user, be sure to get your vote in on this week's poll asking users to vote on which of the feature options they've given is what makes CodeIgniter the best framework out there.

Options included CodeIgniter, CakePHP, PHP on TRAX, Propel, Seagull, Solar, the Zend Framework and more. Coming in with the largest percentage of the votes, though was CakePHP with 56.1 percent of the responses. Coming in second (but a ways behind) was CodeIgniter followed by the Zend Framework.

If you didn't get a chance to get your vote in on that poll, you can get in on this week's poll and voice your opinion. This time, they're asking which (of the given options) should a programmer give the more emphasis to when developing their application.

The options included things like "Small footprint, less than 30K" and "Multiple methods for providing news feed" but the number one on the list (as chosen by the readers) was "Simple and powerful administration panel" with "Easy to integrate into an existing web site" pulling in a close second.

It is evident that the majority looks for a simple and powerful administration panel in a CMS as it garnered 36.9% of votes. 35.7% look for a CMS that is easy to integrate into an existing web site. 13.1% want a CMS that is easy to skin. 'Simple and easy to install' polled 8.3% of the votes. 3.6% desire a small footprint less than 30k. The options, 'No requirement for a database' and 'Multiple methods for providing news feed' bagged a dismal 1.2%.

Be sure to check out this week's poll (PHP misconceptions) and cast your vote today!