New Page – Zend Certification Series

Searching a blog somethings is a bit annoying, so to make everyone life easier I have created a new page with the links for all posts about the Zend Certification Exam (currently PHP5 and in the future ZF).

Since is a page you can easily access it by the top menu ↑or on the right menu →

For now, a fast link: Zend Certification Series

Troubleshooting PHP5 Memcache Connetion Error

I have just installed PHP5 Memcache on my Xubuntu dev machine and every page loaded was returning me an annoying error of Memcache connection error.

Warning: Memcache::connect() [memcache.connect]: Can't connect to localhost:11211, Connection refused (111)

When after you tried everything it still doesn’t work, you got to research for something that will actually correct your issue. With that in mind I found this great post that shows a very easy trouble shooting for fixing the connection error with Memcache.

The post is related to installing, but the last 3 commands will help you do a full troubleshoot with your current Memcache configuration.

Follow the link: http://netweblogic.com/php/installing-memcache-for-php-5-on-linux-centos/

Authorize.Net AIM Class Version 2

After some good responses from the previous class, I took some time and have done some minors, but necessary updates on the class.

Please note, this current version of the class still in Beta release (since the file_get_contents has not been tested and passed under QA)

Here is a list of the added / updated features of the class

• Added __set test before posting the call to the gateway
• Added constants method for those who does not use Zend Framework (extra parameter on the class, but it covers the logic for both methods)
• Both previous items a good thanks to: Ram
• Added posting via file_get_contents (not tested)
• Added more info and better code compliance

To download the newer version of the class all you need to do is go to: https://sourceforge.net/projects/authorizenetaim/ - the download instructions are there.

If you have tested the class, let me know what you think. Improving always.

Authorize.net PHP5 Class – Update

I have decided to place the download inside SourceForge.net. There I can easily mantain notes, logs, and better organize versions and files.

To check the new Authorize.net download page, please go to: https://sourceforge.net/projects/authorizenetaim/

Keep your eyes open I might be releasing some more changes soon

Free Zend Certification Mock Exam

Just today I got a reply back on the Zend Forum about a free mock exam. You can check it up at http://www.abinashg.com/zend and if you are looking for more information on the overal, there is a ton of stuff in the Zend Certification forum. Give both a check. It will worth the time.

PHP5 Zend Exam – QA I

I have been getting lot’s of questions from people all around the world asking me how to pass on the Zend Exam, what to study, etc.

Today I got an email, from Marvin, with some pretty good questions about the Exam and here is the first version of the PHP5 Zend Exam QA (thanks Marvin).

- Are all those functions from the manual included? I mean even the .NET stuff?

-> Dont worry about the .NET stuff, the goal of the exam is for you to demonstrate that you know PHP very very well

- What topic does the exam is focused more ? e.g streams ?

-> Follow the categories that is shown at the book (including patterns). You will have a lot of questions regarding arrays, strings, streams, xml and SOAP, but, again, they will ask you about everything.

- What are other stuffs that I should study as a beginner, that are not in the manual you encountered in the exam?

-> Have you done any mock exams? If not, do so, so you can get an idea of what are your weak points and focus on those. On the mock exams, do not accept anything besides excellent.

- How many months have you reviewed regardless of your work experience ?

-> I took the exam 2 times before passing. If I have to put it up how much time I have studied from the first exam to the last, I would say at least 3 months, studying every day (including weekends). Do the following, and this will help a lot, get a mock exam and for each question, copy the question and the choice with your selected answer to a word document. Answer it and go forward. Repeat this process through all the exam. After is done, read every single question again and before answering it, go to Google, Yahoo, etc, and try to see if you can find an answer for it. It will actually help a lot.

- Do those mock exams from Zend has online timers?  (if there is, it would be hard for me to copy the questions and review them again)

-> Yes they do, but they do not restrict the time even knowing that you should finish in time.

For everyone that is out there studying, keep the good work and good luck.

PHP SOAP Structures Discussion

Some times is always good to know what features and how the SoapClient from PHP works. I have seen in the dZone from Zend a article discussing one little thing, why SoapClient returns one element array as a Stdandard Object. There are some that like and there plenty that doens’t.

Anyway the important thing about this is that this article explains, very well, what to do if you don’t want a object as a return from the SOAP server.

Anyway check the SOAP Structures in PHP Article. It has a great point of view of how SOAP Strucutres work on PHP and what to do if you want the result in different format.

How to pass PHP5 Zend Certification Exam

I have finally passed the PHP5 Zend Exam. It was very hard work. Long time studying and understanding every core PHP function.
Anyway, here are my tips for you to pass as well:

- Study hard. Don’t think you know. Be certain that you know.
- Take the mock exams and only accept Excellent in all categories of the test, nothing less.

- Go outside the books, read forums, blogs (including this one) and off course, the PHP.net site.
- Learn the difference of echo and print and how each one work.

- Learn strings, string functions, patterns, patterns functions, streams and streams functions.

- Learn PHP.INI, not everything, mostly the new settings and session
- Learn session management and it’s security risks
- Don’t be afraid of creating scripts to better learn a new extension of PHP.
- Check the ZendCon 08 Slides. There a few there with some great info.
- Remember you must know very well all the subjects that the certification book informs
- and most important, have fun.

Cristiano Diniz da Silva
PHP5 Zend Certified Engenieer
http://mcloide.wordpress.com

ZendCon 2008 Slides

Zend Developer Zone has just released the slides from the 200 end Conference. A lot of good stuff incluinding the one with PHP PDO that can be very ususefull for the PHP5 Zend Exam.

Check it out: ZendCon 08 Slides

Zend Exam Tips: Strings

When you are taking an exam Strings and Patterns are by far one of the hardest part of the exam. I will take a small overview of the strings section in this category of the exam.

When I first took the exam, the strings section was the section that I got my worst score. It took me days to figure out what went wrong. I don’t think that there’s any PHP developer that doesn’t work with strings at least once a day and I do work with strings and patterns pretty much the whole day long. After you get to know strings manipulation a bit more you will see that it is as powerfull as Arrays.

For a start do you know what’s the difference between echo and print? Basically is only the fact that print returns a interger (1 or 1 – true or true always) and prints the string in the document, but you should know how both work, because that is what is going to be asked from you in the exam.

Take a look in the print.

• Is a language constructor so you don’t need the parenthesis
• it will work as a function because it will return a value
• it does not always work in the same way as echo

If you do <?php print 9.9 ?> it will print on the document 9.9, but, if you <?php echo 9.9 ?> it will print on the document 99. This is the first big catch with print and echo.

Now let’s take a look in the echo:

• is a language constructor so you don’t need to use the parenthesis (that you knew) but if you want you can use the parenthesis just like print
• it does not return a result after printing the string in the document
• you can pass more than one string to print with echo using commas (know this by heart)
• dot’s are used to concatenate strings in an echo
• double quotes and single quotes does not work in the same way

Using the same example as before would not make much sense, but I have one that will help you understand what kind of question you will see in the exam when working with strings.

What is the final result that is going to be printed?

<?php
echo ‘55′ . print(‘0.4′) + 3;
?>

To answer correctly this question you must know how both constructors work, so let’s “debug” this question.

print(‘0.4′) will print 0.4, but echo print(‘0.4′) will print 0.41. Seems odd, but you got to remember that print will first print it’s result and then echo will print the return of the print constructor, so 0.41.

echo ‘55′ . print(‘0.4′) will print then 0.4551. Now things get confusing, but it’s not hard. The print constructor will work a bit faster than echo because it only have a single string to print and echo will have 2 arguments to take care of, so print will print first 0.4 then echo will print it’s first argument, 55 and finally it will print it’s last argument, 1 that is the result of print. In the end we will have 0.4551 as result.

Now comes the third part of the question, adding the value 3 to the string. You must noted by now that the whole string is numeric, so PHP converting the string to float and then adding 3 would not be a problem, but how do you think it would work if we added the string ‘ab’ with the ‘55′ string and an ‘c’ inside the print? In this case it would try to convert the result of the print first to a float number, so ‘c’ would be excluded, and then add the value 3 and then concatenate the string.

This is all and actually all of this are all my notes about strings when studying for the exam. Here are some links that you should take a look at to learn more about strings:

• http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid/1
• http://us3.php.net/print
• http://us3.php.net/echo