stephenminded

A while back I tried to find a Zend Framework PEAR channel, but was unsuccessful. Reading through the December issue of PHP|architect I was pumped that someone has been kind enough to start maintaining one. It is available here:

http://code.google.com/p/zend/

Update: After posting this to twitter, Matthew Weier O’Phinney let me know that there is another ZF PEAR channel setup. This one includes development versions, alphas, betas, rc’s etc. Check it out here:

http://ralphschindler.com/2009/01/07/the-semi-official-zend-framework-pear-channel

I’ve moved this blog over to wordpress. I never gave my homegrown CakePHP blog engine the attention it deserved and it ended up becoming a hindrance. So, for now I’m stuck on a default wordpress theme until I can migrate my old theme over. Hopefully wordpress will let me focus a little more on blogging, we’ll see.

It’s pretty common to want to validate a URL when processing a form. The Zend Framework has a lot of validators that can be used out of the box with Zend_Form. Unfortunately, there is no Zend_Validate_Uri. Upon closer inspection, you will find Zend_Uri, which indeed can be used to check for a valid URL; however, it does not implement the Zend_Validate_Interface and cannot be used as a drop-in form element validator. Fortunately, it is pretty easy to come up with something that can be dropped in:

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class Url_Validator extends Zend_Validate_Abstract
{
    const INVALID_URL = 'invalidUrl';
 
    protected $_messageTemplates = array(
        self::INVALID_URL   => "'%value%' is not a valid URL.",
    );
 
    public function isValid($value)
    {
        $valueString = (string) $value;
        $this->_setValue($valueString);
 
        if (!Zend_Uri::check($value)) {
            $this->_error(self::INVALID_URL);
            return false;
        }
        return true;
    }
}
 
// When creating the form:
$website = $form->createElement('text', 'website');
$website->addValidator(new Url_Validator);

This reminds me of a senior coder I used to work under who constantly yelled at us to “Code to the interface!”.

Note: I originally posted this as a response to a thread here.