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The famous FPDF error: “Not a JPEG file”

admin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 19:19:04 +0000

Now and then when you work with FPDF you may encounter this error:
“FPDF error: Not a JPEG file”

The confusing point about this error is, that this is also displayed if your file in question has an .jpg/.jpeg ending.

So in case you changed the ending of an .PNG image file to .JPG ,assuming that this makes the image to a JPG-Image – let me tell you: FPDF is smarter

Every image file has a characteristic beginning. The 2nd to 4th character of an PNG is… yes… PNG.
You see it here – this is a file with the extension .jpg opened in the Texteditor Notepad++ :

Obviously FPDF checks for this and throws then an error (if the file extension is not corresponding).
Solution: make sure its really, thru & thru a .jpg

How does the AIM CURL call to Authorize.net look like?

admin — Sun, 30 May 2010 17:17:47 +0000

Actually its only some lines of code (which you can also find in the Authorize.net AIM sample code):

$request=curl_init($post_url);
curl_setopt($request, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);

curl_setopt($request, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

curl_setopt($request, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post_string); 

$post_response = curl_exec($request); 

curl_close ($request); // close curl object
// Following line takes the response

$response_array = explode($post_values["x_delim_char"],$post_response);

Keep in mind: your website can only sent a CURL call if your PHP has the CURL module implemented.

Linux or Windows server – this is here the question…

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:31:34 +0000

Now and then a PHP programmer needs to figure out, if a script runs on a Linux- or Windows server. Of course you can always consult phpinfo() and check the info in the first line next to ‘System’. But for the further processing in scripts the function phpinfo() is not the best candidate.

Happily PHP offers us at least 3 other possibilities to find out:

Possibility No.1:

echo PHP_OS;

A windows server will return here usually the value “WINNT”.

Possibility No.2:

echo php_uname(‘s’);

With a Windows-Server we get a result like “Windows NT”. You could use this then in a strpos() query like here:

if (strpos($os_info,‘Windows’) !== FALSE){

    echo "YES, this is a windows box…";

 }

Possibility No.3:

echo DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR;

PHP provides for us a constant for the separator used in directories of the server. Windows systems as we know use the separator \ . So you could use this again for a PHP query with the function strpos() :

if (strpos(DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR != ‘/’){

    echo "Again! A windows server";

 }

—-
….I’m quite that these possibilities are not the only ones – further possibilities are very much appreciated

International Postal Address Formats – Where to find them?

admin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:49:54 +0000

A while ago we made a small but important change to our WordPress ecommerce themes. Instead of nation-wide sales also international orders were now possible. This led to another challenge: postal address have different formats in different countries.
You may wonder: “…and, whats the big deal with this?”
Well, lets have a look at the classic example of two Joe Doe’s, one living in the US and the other one in Germany. The different addresses would be:

USA:

JOE DOE
1500 E MAIN AVE STE 201
SPRINGFIELD VA 22162–1010
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Germany:

Joe Doe
Teststr. 1a
11111 TESTSTADT
GERMANY

If I typed the data of the second Joe Doe into the address form of my E-Commerce application fitting for US-addresses, then I would get an address like this:

JOE DOE
1A TESTSTRASSE
TESTSTADT BAYERN 11111
GERMANY

I can assure you that this will confuse German shop owners + the German national postal delivery services (Deutsche Bundespost).

Ok – so where can I get the information from?
Happily, there exists an international organization which takes care of these issues – the UPU, Universal Postal Union.
They give you here the officially correct address format for every country: http://www.upu.int/en/activities/addressing/postal-addressing-systems-in-member-countries.html – (interestingly, it doesn’t like Opera as browser)

Google Chart Api – Create a simple pie chart

admin — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:03:51 +0000

This pie chart looks better than some dry ratio numbers, isn’t it?

The pie chart above can be created on the fly with this simple piece of html code:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?
chs=250×100
&chd=t:10,90
&cht=p3
&chl=Smart|Silly”
alt=”Sample chart” />

Interesting here:

1. With http://chart.apis.google.com/chart you call the Google Chart Api

2. This alone gives us of course not yet a nice pie chart – we have to add some parameters

For example with &chd=t:10,90 we get a 10% | 90% ratio of the pie chart.
Means you could manipulate this ratio with some php values. The number of smart people might increase…

$silly = 5;
$smart = 95;
?>

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?
chs=250×100
&chd=t:,
&cht=p3
&chl=Smart|Silly”
alt=”Sample chart” />

Ideal for web statistics…

3. More information about cool charts with the Google Chart Api you can find here: http://code.google.com/intl/en/apis/chart/types.html#pie_charts

4. And, its also possible to highlight countries on a map