Create a dynamic select menu with PHP

In many HTML forms or content management systems the form element “SELECT” is used frequently. If you use your PHP code inside the standard HTML element the code will be nearly unreadable. Adding extra options is not really fun. This small handy function will produce a select menu based on an associative array. Just define an array and call the function, that’s all you need to do. Continue reading Create a dynamic select menu with PHP

How to verify email addresses from your mailing list?

Email marketing is still one of the most efficient ways to reach your customer, leads and site followers. If your mailing list becomes older and hasn’t been used for some time, there is serious chance that some of the email addresses aren’t valid anymore.

Why do you need to verify these email addresses?

Some people would say, why should I care and there are people sending out their mailings to these invalid email addresses many times.

Continue reading How to verify email addresses from your mailing list?

Alternative functions for file_get_contents()

Like many others I’ve used the native PHP function file_get_contents() to receive the content from a remote file because the functions is very easy to use. But is it the best way to do that? I see many scripts using that function and even WordPress plugins are using this function while WordPress has a native function to receive remote content.

While debugging some website, I’ve noticed that I get trouble using file_get_contents() if I use the 5G firewall rules for the remote site I tried to access. This native PHP function doesn’t send any USER AGENT information and that’s why a 5G rules has blocked the access. There are also other reasons to use other functions: Missing response codes, no option to add additional headers and limitations from your hosting provider are just a view of them.  Continue reading Alternative functions for file_get_contents()

Prevent posting of long strings

You know the problem from weblog’s, forums and guestbook’s: Extra long strings with more than “x” same characters in order. The result is an element width which will distort your website. This function takes care of this kind of string (for example multiple chars or explanation marks). The formatted string is be shortened to the amount of characters you specify. Continue reading Prevent posting of long strings