Book Image

Expert PHP 5 Tools

By : Dirk Merkel
Book Image

Expert PHP 5 Tools

By: Dirk Merkel

Overview of this book

Even if you find writing PHP code easy, writing code that is efficient and easy to maintain and reuse is not so straightforward. Self-taught PHP developers and programmers transitioning from other languages often lack the knowledge to work with PHP on an enterprise level. They need to take their PHP development skills to that level by learning the skills and tools necessary to write maintainable and efficient code.This book will enable you to take your PHP development skills to an enterprise level by teaching you the skills and tools necessary to write maintainable and efficient code. You will learn how to perform activities such as unit testing, enforcing coding standards, automating deployment, and interactive debugging using tools created for PHP developers – all the information in one place. Your code will be more maintainable, efficient, and self-documented.From the design phase to actually deploying the application, you will learn concepts and apply them using the best-of-breed tools available in PHP.Experienced developers looking for expertise in PHP development will learn how to follow best practices within the world of PHP. The book contains many well-documented code samples and recipes that can be used as a starting point for producing quality code.Specifically, you will learn to design an application with UML, code it in Eclipse with PDT, document it with phpDocumentor, debug it interactively with Xdebug, test it by writing PHPUnit tests, manage source code in Subversion, speed up development and increase stability by using Zend Framework, pull everything together using continuous integration, and deploy the application automatically with Phing – all in one book. The author's experience in PHP development enables him to share insights on using enterprise tools, in a clear and friendly way.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Expert PHP 5 Tools
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface

Logging


One of the most useful and equally underused tools for trouble-shooting PHP are log files. PHP can be configured to write all kinds of information and detail to a system-wide log file that will be a valuable resource when the time comes to track down some illusive bugs.

There are several reasons you should be using and reviewing log files regularly, including the following:

  • Log files give you access to historical debug info. If you receive an error report, but are unable to duplicate the problem yourself, you can consult the log file(s) to see if there is anything that was recorded at the time of the incident.

  • Log files contain cumulative information. Error messages in the browser describe the state of the code at a particular point in time—often at the time when it crashed. In contrast, log files span a period of time that can range from a few seconds to months or even years. Having access to so much historical data lets you learn about the frequency and severity of issues with your...