I'm currently developing a mobile application that will fetch data from server by request (page load) or by notification received (e.g. GCM).
Currently I'm starting to think about how to build the backend for that app.
I thought about using PHP to handle the http requests to my database (mySQL) and to return the response as JSON. As I see it there are many ways to implement such server and would like to hear to hear thoughts about my ideas for implementations:
1. create a single php page that will receive an Enum/Query, execute and send the results.
2. create a php page for every query needs to be made.
Which of my implementations should I use? if none please suggest another. Thank you.
P.S, this server will only use as a fetcher for SQL and push notifications. if you have any suggestion past experience about how to perform it (framework, language, anything that comes to mind) I'd be happy to learn.
You can use PHP REST Data services framework https://github.com/chaturadilan/PHP-Data-Services
I am also looking for information about how to power a web and mobile application that has to get and save data on the server.
I've been working with a PHP framework such as Yii Framework, and I know that this framework, and others, have the possibility to create a API/Web service.
APIS can be SOAP or REST, you should read about the differences of both to see wich is best for mobile. I think the main and most important one is that for SOAP, you need a Soap Client library on the device you are trying to connect, but for REST you just make a http request to the url.
I have built a SOAP API with Yii, is quite easy, and I have use it to communicate between two websites, to get and put data in the same database.
As for your question regarding to use one file or multiple files for every request, in the case of SOAP built on Yii, you have to normally define all the functions available to the API on the server side in only one file(controller) and to connect to that webservice you end up doing:
$client=new SoapClient("url/of/webservice);
$result=$client->methodName($param1, $param2, etc..);
So basically what you get is that from your client, you can run any method defined on the server side with the parameters that you wish.
Assuming that you use to work program php in the "classic way" I suggest you should start learning a framework, there are many reasons to do it but in the end, it is because the code will result more clean and stable, for example:
You shouldn't be writing manual queries (sometimes yes), but you can use the framework's models to handle data validation and storage into the database.
Here are some links:
http://www.larryullman.com/series/learning-the-yii-framework/
http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/guide/1.1/en/topics.webservice
http://www.yiiframework.com/wiki/175/how-to-create-a-rest-api/
As I said, I am also looking to learn how to better power a mobile application, I know this can be achieved with a API, but I don't know if that is the only way.
create a single php page that will receive an Enum/Query, execute and send the results.
I created a single PHP file named api.php that does exactly this, the project is named PHP-CRUD-API. It is quite popular.
It should take care of the boring part of the job and provides a sort of a framework to get started.
Talking about frameworks: you can integrate the script in Laravel, Symfony or SlimPHP to name a few.
Related
So, while practising all the new tech. Angular 2, AngularJS, Firebase, Loopback, NodeJS etc .. I'm kind of confused on some topics that people don't really talk about. It might go into too much detail, but I'll try to split it as much as I can.
Part 1 -- Performance
I like the approach of: MyApp (Web, Mobile, ..) --> API <-- Database
Okay, we perform API requests to the same server over HTTP which is slower, but for small projects this should be a non issue right? Or are there any other solutions for this matter?
I know they often just do: MyApp --> Framework <-- Database and add an API interface which calls the correct actions to get the necessary logic/data out to eg. a mobile app
-- End Part 1
Part 2 -- Security
So, assume we have an API up and running either with Lumen, LoopBack or anything else like a realtime Firebase database (not really an API). Then we can connect with it over HTTP requests via Angular, jQuery... If a user inspects our source code, they can easily see how we handle data in the backend. How can this be secured in a way that only the necessary applications have control over the API (OAuth2 ?) and also that we limit the insight of users into our API.
-- End Part 2
Thanks.
Okay, I thought, it's a "too broad" question, but actually, it has a short answer.
Performance
Irrelevant. If you gotta fetch data, you gotta fetch data. Be it API call or some custom action in your laravel code (or something). Same HTTP stuff.
Security
... where a user can check the source code of the API calls.
Security through obscurity doesn't work. Always consider that your client is compromised. Use proper authentication/authorization methods (OAuth and the like). So even if a malicious user knows (which he will) your api endpoint signatures (or whatever you were trying to hide), he can't abuse them.
I am starting to work with angular and am fascinated by the bi-directional data-binding capabilities and by its $http method, which lets me save changes in to my mysql database, without refreshing the page.
Another thing I am currently fascinated by is the real time capability across multiple clients using firebase. Here all clients are updated in REAL TIME, when the database receives any changes. I'd probably like to use firebase, but I would have to drop Laravel and MySql as a persistence layer entirely, which I would like to keep for the moment, since my application is already working in Laravel, just not in real time.
How would I go about having a Real Time application, which updates every client, without refreshing the view, in Laravel using MySQL and Angular?
If I am not mistaken, Pusher and PubNub, are providing this necessary open connection with the server using websockets, so when the server has something to share, angular will now and render it.
Since I would like to use Laravel and MySQL as a persistence layer, I am not sure, what the best way would be. I am not even sure, if I understood everything correctly, which I wrote above, since I am new to angular and real-time applications.
What would be the next necessary steps, to get some Real-Time capability into a PHP/MySQL application?
The solution for your problem is:
1º - open websocket connection with the websocket-server and subscribe a channel, after this send the data to your serve using ajax
tutorial angular pusher
2º - In server side, you get the data, saves to your database and send a 'PUBLISH' to the respective channel into websocket server
lib useful for this
3º - Through the subscribe gets the data in real time
Pusher.subscribe('channel', 'event', function (item) {
// code
});
I had a similar problem recently and I finally ended up using Redis publish/subscribe Redis. You can store data in the channel and then subscribe to any changes. When something changes you can send it to Pusher which will send it then to the clients.
I also recommend considering Node.js and Socket.io since you can achieve very good performance without third party service, and even if you don't have experience with node you can find very good examples on Socket.IO how to write an application.
For Redis there is a good library for PHP called Predis and there is Redis Node client as well, so you can mix it all together.
I'm trying to develop AngularJS applicatino using the Angular tutorial web-server script.
Is it possible or smart to use it for development only scenario ?
I want to be able to develop and test my Angular application without relying on the real server and real database, that's the reason I'm asking this.
I don't know much about the tutorial web-server script.
When it comes to your situation, though, your best bet is to abstract away your data managing processes. In other words, you can make a set of services that take care of loading and saving your data. You could have methods like book.save() or book.fetch().
Then in save() and fetch() you can return or insert an object literal or call for a JSON file.
Assuming that your product will be running on JSON data, you should be able to write another set of model services that call JSON data from the server rather any that you've hard written in the code or in a *.json file.
I am building a website (probably in Wordpress) which takes data from a number of different sources for display on various pages.
The sources:
A Twitter feed
A Flickr feed
A database on a remote server
A local database
From each source I will mainly retrieve
A short string, e.g. for Twitter, the Tweet, and from the local database the title of a blog page.
An associated image, if one exists
A link identifying the content at its source
My question is:
What is the best way to a) store the data and b) retrieve the data
My thinking is:
i) Write a script that is run every 2 or so minutes on a cron job
ii) the script retrieves data from all sources and stores it in the local database
iii) application code can then retrieve all data from the one source, the local database
This should make application code easier to manage - we only ever draw data from one source in application code - and that's the main appeal. But is it overkill for a relatively small site?
I would recommend putting the twitter feed and flickr feed in JavaScript. Both flickr and twitter have REST APIs. By putting it on the client you free up resources on your server, create less complexity, your users won't be waiting around for your server to fetch the data, and you can let twitter and flickr cache the data for you.
This assumes you know JavaScript. Once you get past JavaScript quirks, it's not a bad language. Give Jquery a try. JQuery Twitter plugin Flickery JQuery plugin. There are others, that's just the first results from Google.
As for your data on the local server and remote server, that will depend more on the data that is being fetched. I would go with whatever you can develop the fastest and gives acceptable results. If that means making a REST call from server to sever, then go for it. IF the remote server is slow to respond, I would go the AJAX REST API method.
And for the local database, you are going to have to write server side code for that, so I would do that inside the Wordpress "framework".
Hope that helps.
I got an assignment to do and for that I could use any www technology like HTML, JavaScript, PHP etc. I'm really sorry to say that I haven't studied any of these technologies. Therefore I took few tutorials and skimmed through them searching for answers.
I found solutions for many problems but one problem yet unsolved. It is this:
I want two clients to communicate through a server for this assignment. One send a message, server processes it and forwards it to the next.
None of PHP tutorials showed me anyway of doing this. All of them talked of communication between one client with a server.
Please help. Show me a way to do this. Thanks.
Currently, without reverting to cutting-edge (and possibly hacky/unreliable) techniques, your PHP server cannot initiate communications with a page you've already loaded into a web browser. This is a result of the way the HTTP protocol works.
One way to solve this would be polling on the "receiving" end for data. Something like a publish-subscribe pattern.
One way to do this would be:
One client sends data to the server using an HTTP request (XHR aka AJAX) specifying the target for this data (the other client).
The server stores this data in a persistent storage (local file, database, etc).
The second client periodically sends a request to the server asking if there's any new data for it to consume. This can be done using setInterval and XHR in JavaScript.
I would suggest you take a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish/subscribe
And also, for a cutting edge way to do this, check out Socket.IO:
http://socket.io
You might want to Google on "php chat server." Building a chat server is a simple way to get started.
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/javascript-ajax/how-to-create-a-simple-web-based-chat-application/
http://code.jenseng.com/jenChat/