In general, I find it a great framework. However that was not always the case, especially when just starting out.

What I’d like to do is start putting together some practical and some real in-depth CodeIgniter tutorials for you to help shorten your learning curve…but I need your help.

So, please take this 3 minute survey and tell me what frustrates you the most about building web apps using CodeIgniter.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9T3BLWZ

Thanks in advance!

PS. I’ll enter everyone who fills out the 3 minute survey into a drawing to win a $100 Apple Gift Card.

Michael

• Language Reference
• Function Reference

CodeIgniter Docs

• CodeIgniter User Guide

CodeIgniter – Getting Started

• Everything You Need to Get Started With CodeIgniter
• Easy Development With CodeIgniter

Become a CodeIgniter Pro in 15 Days!

• Day 1: Getting Started With the Framework
• Day 2: Database Selecting Methods
• Day 3: Sending Emails
• Day 4: Newsletter Signup
• Day 5: CRUD
• Day 6: Login
• Day 7: Pagination
• Day 8: AJAX
• Day 9: File Uploading and Image Manipulation
• Day 10: The Calendar Library
• Day 11: File and Directory Operations
• Day 12: Shopping Cart
• Day 13: Extending the Framework
• Day 14: Security
• Day 15: Profiling, Benchmarking & Hooks

Other Sample CodeIgniter Tutorials Worth Reviewing

• Build an RSS 2.0 Feed with CodeIgniter
• Working with RESTful Services in CodeIgniter
• Basecamp Style Subdomains With CodeIgniter
• Creating a File Hosting Site with CodeIgniter
• How to Build a Shopping Cart using CodeIgniter and jQuery
• How to Update your Twitter Status with CodeIgniter

All of these CodeIgniter Tutorials are provided for free by NetTuts.com. Share your favorite CodeIgniter Tutorials in the comments below.

These are my top 4 places to find the best php jobs online…

#1 – 37signals Job board

The 37singals job board has a sub-section for programming jobs and you can easily filter that down to jobs in php. The cost to post a php job here is very high so most recruiters don’t use it. This is good for you because the companies that do use it are serious about looking for the best php developers directly.

Searching for PHP resulted in only 30 matches with several locations listed as “Anywhere”, which is great for php developers who like to work remotely!

Note — This is where I found one of my best clients that I have been consulting with for over a year now. They are based out of North Carolina and I am in Louisville, Kentucky.

RSS Feed: http://jobs.37signals.com/categories/2/jobs.rss

#2 — SimplyHired – Job Search Made Simple (I agree)

The SimplyHired job board is probably the number one aggregated job board online today. Their searching, sorting, & location filters are hard to be beat for sure, however the results are not always as they appear.

A simple search for PHP returns over 17,000 listings with includes many health related jobs like “CLINICAL INSTRUCTOR – PHP/IOP” so you have to filter that crap out.

Be warned though that most of the listings on this site are created by recruiters and head hunters, not the real companies looking for php developers directly. This means that the recruiters will pre-screen you before connecting you with the real company which is not always in your best interest. I’d much rather talk to the hiring manager than work through a proxy head hunter that has never coded a day in their life!

RSS Feed: http://www.simplyhired.com/a/job-feed/rss/q-php/l-louisville,+ky/mi-50 (Louisville for local to me, replace with your city for local to you.)

#3 — Startuply – Startup Companies, Startup Jobs

Pros – The concept here is excellent, if you are looking to join a startup. However the pay is often on par with startup income, which is zero. A lot of listings want you to work for little to no pay. Get in that sweat equity early!

One of the good things about this site is that the listings are mostly from the companies that are looking for php developers and not recruiters. However I find that most of their php job listings are often stale and outdated. They don’t do a real good job at expiring old listings so your search results are often much less than stated.

Also, most jobs are on-site and in major tech cities so if you don’t live nearby, then you probably won’t be landing any of those jobs anytime soon.

RSS Feed: http://www.startuply.com/Rss/Search.aspx?s=php

#4 — Craigslist – Local, Local, Local

Craigslist is GREAT for finding local php jobs. Simply drill down to your city and head over to the jobs section. Search for PHP and you should find several local jobs “usually” listed by the actual companies looking for php developers, but not always. So be sure to review each listing thoroughly.

RSS Feed: http://louisville.craigslist.org/search/jjj?query=php&format=rss (Louisville for local to me, replace with your city for local to you.)

I know there are a lot of other php job boards our there and probably many more places to find php developer jobs online, so please share your favorite php job board with everyone in your comments below. Thanks!

Here’s a little tip on how to manage both database settings from your local sandbox and easily switch between the two databases.

Simply add two database config blocks in your database.php config file and use the $active_group variable to switch between the two databases.

$active_group = "default";
$active_record = TRUE;

$db['default']['hostname'] = "localhost";
$db['default']['username'] = "root";
$db['default']['password'] = "";
$db['default']['database'] = "pm5_client";
$db['default']['dbdriver'] = "mysql";
$db['default']['dbprefix'] = "";
$db['default']['pconnect'] = TRUE;
$db['default']['db_debug'] = TRUE;
$db['default']['cache_on'] = FALSE;
$db['default']['cachedir'] = "";
$db['default']['char_set'] = "utf8";
$db['default']['dbcollat'] = "utf8_general_ci";

$db['coaching']['hostname'] = "db.domain.com";
$db['coaching']['username'] = "xxx";
$db['coaching']['password'] = "xxx";
$db['coaching']['database'] = "xxx";
$db['coaching']['dbdriver'] = "mysql";
$db['coaching']['dbprefix'] = "";
$db['coaching']['pconnect'] = TRUE;
$db['coaching']['db_debug'] = TRUE;
$db['coaching']['cache_on'] = FALSE;
$db['coaching']['cachedir'] = "";
$db['coaching']['char_set'] = "utf8";
$db['coaching']['dbcollat'] = "utf8_general_ci";

In the example above, if I want to connect to my local database I use:

$active_group = "default";

And if I want to connect to my remote (production) database, I use:

$active_group = "coaching";

That’s it. Enjoy!

If you found this article useful, please share your comments below.

In this example, I’ll use the following CodeIgniter Libraries & Helpers to display a file upload form that sends the uploaded file to a user via email.

• File Uploading Library
• Email Library
• Form Validation Library
• Form Helper

Step 1: Load all the libraries & helpers in your controller.

// Load upload library & set config preferences
$config = array(
	'upload_path' 	=> '/tmp',
	'allowed_types' => 'gif|jpg|png'
);
$this->load->library('upload', $config);

// Load email library & set config preferences
$config = array(
	'protocol' => 'mail'
);
$this->load->library('email', $config);

// Load form validation library
$this->load->library('form_validation');

// Load form helper
$this->load->helper('form');

Step 2: Combine form validation, file uploading, & email libraries together seamlessly.

// Set form validation rules
$this->form_validation->set_rules('contact', 	'Contact', 	'trim|required|xss_clean');
$this->form_validation->set_rules('email', 		'Email', 	'trim|required|valid_email|xss_clean');
$this->form_validation->set_rules('userfile', 	'File', 	'trim');
$this->form_validation->set_error_delimiters('', '
');

// Run form validation
if ($this->form_validation->run() === FALSE) {		

// Form validation failed based on validation rules set above

// Show form
$this->_tpl('uploadexample');

} else {

// Form validation success

// Use PHP's internal $_FILES superglobal to test for valid
if ($_FILES["userfile"]["name"]) {

	// Do the file upload
	$this->upload->do_upload();

	// Get upload errors
	$errors = $this->upload->display_errors();

	// There was an error uploading the files. Since this is
	// just an example, die.
	if ($errors) {
		die($errors);
	}

	// Get upload data assuming no errors
	$upload_data = $this->upload->data();

}

// Set email data from the form submission
$email    = set_value('email');
$contact  = set_value('contact');

// Set the email subject
$subject  = 'Form Submission';

// Set the email message
$message  = "From: $contact <$email>\n";
$message .= "Datetime: ".date("Y/m/d h:m:s A")."\n\n";
$message .= "-------------------------------\n\n";
$message .= "contact : ".set_value('contact') ."\n";
$message .= "email : ".set_value('email') ."\n";
$message .= "-------------------------------\n\n";

// Add file data to the message if it is set
if ($upload_data) {
	$message .= "file name : ".$upload_data['file_name'] ."\n";
	$message .= "file type : ".$upload_data['file_type'] ."\n";
}

// Configure the email message
$to = ""; ## DEFINE ME
$cc = "";
$bcc = "";
$this->email->to($to);
$this->email->cc($cc);
$this->email->bcc($bcc);
$this->email->from($email);
$this->email->reply_to($email, $contact);
$this->email->subject($subject);
$this->email->message($message);

// Attach the uploaded file if it is set
if ($upload_data) {
	$this->email->attach($upload_data["full_path"]);
}

// Send the email
$this->email->send();		

// Show the internal email debugger if you experience errors.
echo $this->email->print_debugger();

// Redirect on success
//redirect('uploadexample/thankyou', 'location');

Step 3: Lastly, use the form helper in your template to easily render your file upload form.

< ?=form_open_multipart('uploadexample')?>

<table cellpadding="2">
<tr>
	<td>Contact Name:</td>
	<td>
		<?php
		$data = array
			(
				'name'        => 'contact',
				'id'          => 'contact',
				'value'       => (set_value('contact')) ? set_value('contact') : $contact,
				'maxlength'   => '255',
				'size'        => '25',
		    );
		echo form_error('contact');
		echo form_input($data);
		?>
	</td>
</tr>

<tr>
	<td>Email:</td>
	<td>
		<?php
		$data = array
			(
				'name'        => 'email',
				'id'          => 'email',
				'value'       => (set_value('email')) ? set_value('email') : $email,
				'maxlength'   => '255',
				'size'        => '50',
		    );
		echo form_error('email');
		echo form_input($data);
		?>
	</td>
</tr>

<tr>
	<td>Upload Image:</td>
	<td>
		<?php
		$data = array
			(
				'type'        => 'file',
				'name'        => 'userfile',
				'id'          => 'userfile',
				'value'       => (set_value('userfile')) ? set_value('userfile') : $userfile,
				'size'        => '50',
		    );
		echo form_error('userfile');
		echo form_input($data);
		?>
		<br />
		Supported files: .gif. jpg. png
	</td>
</tr>

<tr>
	<td colspan="2">< ?=form_submit('submit', 'Submit')?></td>
</tr>
</table>

< ?=form_close()?>

Download the files and test it out.

If you found this article useful, please share your comments below.

The gotcha here is that if you use 3rd-party URL shorting services, you are basically giving up control of each URL you add to a system outside of your own. This means that if a service goes out of business or suffers from an outage, consider all of your links dead. If you are doing SEO, that could mean a lot of lost traffic!

For this site, I am in the process of writing my own URL shorting service in CodeIgniter. However if you have seen any of my recent Twitter links or newsletter links you may have already noticed that I am using a custom URL shorting service: gotphp.com/go/X

The PHP script I am using temporarily is provided by http://yourls.org/, which is OK at best for a free script. (It get’s the job done for now.)

So, back to the CodeIgniter Short URL Redirect Example.

CodeIgniter has support for custom URL routing rules. This is great as it allows us to instantly configure any number of short URL options without doing a lot of coding. Yeah!

Here’s how easy it is to pull this off in CodeIgniter.

Step 1 – Configure your routes.php file.

// --------------------------------------------------------------------
// Create a short URL
//
// This URL: http://www.example.php/go/1
//
// Will translate to: http://www.example.php/redirectexample/short/foo/$1
// --------------------------------------------------------------------
$route["go/(:any)"] = "redirectexample/short/foo/$1";

Here’s how this breaks down.

• The controller file we are calling is “/apps/controllers/redirectexample.php”.
• The method in that controller that will be executed is named “short”.
• The variable that will be available in that method will be “$foo”.
• The value of the variable will be anything in the URL after the string “go/X”.

Step 2 – Create the controller and method to handle the short URL service.

class Redirectexample extends MY_Controller {

	// --------------------------------------------------------------------

	/**
	 *	The constructor
	 */
	function __construct()
	{
		parent::__construct();
	}

	// --------------------------------------------------------------------

	/**
	 *	The default method for this controller
	 */
	function index()
	{
		// Nothing here yet.
	}

	// --------------------------------------------------------------------

	/**
	 *	A method for handling short URL's defined in the routes.php config file
	 */
	function short()
	{
		// Use the custom debugger to show the value of $foo for this example
		$this->debugger->display($this->uri_data["foo"]);
	}

	// --------------------------------------------------------------------

}

And that does it! Extremely simple in my opinion.

I’ll add this example to my CI build later today. If you have subscribed to this blog, you’ll get an email with a download link to the updated build when it is ready.

If you found this article useful, please share your comments below.

I’ve been building web apps for over 10 years now and I enjoy helping others solve problems.

Use the contact form below to ask me any application design or CodeIgniter related questions and I’ll do my best to give you straight forward answers and advice from my past experiences.

Please note that good questions will be turned into blog posts.

I look forward to hearing from you!