Why CakePHP is Popular? And The Role Of CakePHP Developer

CakePHP is an open source PHP based rapid development framework. It offers great run-time infrastructure along with abundant set of libraries for CakePHP developers. Cake PHP development is supported by the MVC (Model View and Controller) architecture which differentiates the programming logic from the data presentation layer.

It also features other programming concepts like Front Controller, Association Data Mapping and Active Record. Along with these, there are numerous other features that make CakePHP one of the most preferred web development frameworks among others.

Let’s take a look at some features here

Wide Community:

CakePHP developers are supported by huge peers who make use of this framework. There are many contributors and programmers who share the community. For this reason, using the framework is simpler for development as well as for research.

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Reusability:

It facilitates the developers in saving a lot of efforts through PHP development. Because the programmer make use of a pre-written code for more than one project. In other words, they can focus on the logical and creative part of application whereas the tedious task of coding could be handled with ease.

Open Source:

The framework is open source, for which the CakePHP developers do not have to spend any amount in the process of development and have complete access to its source code. It also assists the developers in adding robustness and improves performance in web applications.

Some of the roles of CakePHP developers include

    • Manage development efforts and framework efficiently
    • Support product releases
    • Ability to handle lot of projects in less time
    • Overall review of the quality & progress of the work
    • Support stable user growth

Conclusion

Here at Andolasoft we provide our customers with a unique and up-to-date approach towards their Web-app development. We design and develop intriguing web applications using PHP/CakePHP. We follow agile development approach to deliver project on time and within budget to our customer

How To Migrate CakePHP 1.x To 2.x

Today, we will focus on what we need to do to get CakePHP 1.3 application upgraded to CakePHP 2.2.3-the latest official stable release

Installation

This is pretty straight forward, same as CakePHP 1.3 version.
Download and unzip the CakePHP 2.2.3 and follow these below-mentioned instructions.

Configuration

  • core.php
  • Make sure to copy the security.salt and Security.cipher_seed from your old core.php
  • Take notice of how errors, sessions and caching have changed.
  • database.php
  • There is a minor change on this file,
  • CakePHP 1.3: ‘driver’ => ‘mysqli’
  • CakePHP 2.2.3: ‘datasource’ => ‘Database/Mysql’
  • routes.php
  • Don’t overwrite this file with your older one.
  • You can place your custom routes before or after CakePlugin::routes()
  • bootstrap.php
  • Copy all functions, constants and other code from your old bootstrap into the new one.

Folder Structure

  • The cake folder is now inside lib folder. There is nothing to do with this.
  • Files and folders are now CamelCased instead of lower_underscored
  • Example: The “users” folder inside the View becomes “Users”
  • The controller files are now UsersController.php instead of users_controller.php
  • project_user_controller.php becomes “ProjectUsersController.php”
  • The model files are now User.php instead of user.php
  • project_user.php model becomes “ProjectUser.php”
  • The components files are now FormatComponent.php instead of format.php
  • The helpers files are now DatetimeHelper.php instead of datetime.php

Moved APP files

  • The parent app_classes have been moved and renamed as well.
  • Instead of app_controller.php, app_model.php, and app_helper.php now become Controller/AppController.php, Model/AppModel.php, and View/Helper/AppHelper.php.

Auth Component and Login

  • Auth now supports multiple authorization adapters that can all be used together
  • Cake 1.3.x was automatically checking if user has correctly entered username/password inside your login () method of users_controller but in cake 2.x we need to manually call $this->Auth->login () this returns Boolean value based on successful login or failure.

If you are using “email” as your login field name
CakePHP 1.3: (inside AppController beforeFilter)

$this->Auth->fields = array('username' => 'email', 'password' => 'passw

CakePHP 2.2.3: (inside AppController beforeFilter)

$this->Auth->authenticate = array('Form' => array('fields' => array('username' => 'email', 'password' => 'password')));

Auth Login

CakePHP 2.2.3: (inside UsersController login function)

if (!empty($this->request->data)) {
if ($this->Auth->login()) {
$this->redirect($this->Auth->redirect());
} else {
//$this->Session->setFlash('Your Email or Password was incorrect.');
}
}

CakePHP 2.x auth automatically hashes the password on login but not on save.

We can add a beforeSave() method on the User model to hash the password.

public function beforeSave($options = array())
{
$this->data['User']['password'] = AuthComponent::password($this->data['User']['password']); return true;
}

Request Data

  • CakePHP 2.0 has done some request related changes.
  • The Request Object does not have “form” element any longer.
  • You will need to replace $this->params[‘form’] with $this->request[‘data’] or $this->request->data.
  • $this->data needs to be replaced with $this->request->data
  • So, now we can use $this->request->data on both form submit and AJAX post.
  • Now, we need to check !empty($this->request->data) instead of “!empty($this->data)” while saving a form.

Views Changes

  • Use $this->Html->link() instead of $html->link()
  • Use $this->Form-> instead of $form->
  • Use $this->Session-> instead of $session->
  • Use $this->Paginator-> intead of $paginator ->
  • For JavaScript inclusion use $this->Html->script(“”) instead of $javascript->link()

Moved Email Elements

  • Email elements have been moved from views/elements to View/Emails.

Helpers

  • The Ajax, Javascript, and XML helpers have been removed. You will need to replace these helper calls with appropriate alternatives
  • Helpers can no longer be called with “$helper->function()”. You need to update your helper calls to use $this->Helper->function()
  • If you are loading or importing your helpers inside another custom helper or component,
  • $myhelper = new DatetimeHelper() becomes $myhelper = new DatetimeHelper($this->_View) or $myhelper = new DatetimeHelper(new View(null))

Components

  • All component files should be extended by Component Class instead of Object

DB and Code Caution

  • There is no Enum Support in cakephp2.x as sql server doesnt have similar datatype.
  • You can change enum to tinyint(2)
  • In cake 1.3 used tinyint(1) for is_active database fields.
  • While retrieveing from database it returns 0/1
  • But, cakePHP2.x no longer returns as 0. This will return bool(true) /bool(false)
  • Boolean column values will be casted to php native boolean type automatically.

__() Function and Pagination

  • The __() function no longer has the option to echo. It always returns
  • Change the Pagination code,

CakePHP 1.3:

echo $this->Paginator->counter(array( 'format' => __('Page %page% of %pages%, showing %current% records out of %count% total, starting on record %start%, ending on %end%'', true)));

CakePHP 2.2.3:

echo $this->Paginator->counter(array( 'format' => __('Page %page% of %pages%, showing %current% records out of %count% total, starting on record %start%, ending on %end%'')));

Why Hire PHP Developers for High Quality Web App Development

PHP is a widely-used Open Source, general-purpose, cross-platform & HTML embedded server-side scripting language, that suits web development.

PHP Framework is a fundamental platform that helps programmers for rapid and effective development. It’s one of the powerful tool which helps to tweak code in a standard configured manner & can be used with many relational database management systems (RDBMS).

Reasons of Choosing PHP scripting language

Simple and Easy To Learn

PHP is one of the easiest scripting language to learn and understandable by developers. The syntax is somewhat similar to Java and C. However, knowledge of HTML is the only prerequisite to code in PHP.

Instant Support

When a developer stuck with any coding issue, there are huge numbers of references, forums and support communities available online and they are free. This is simply because, PHP is very popular, widely used and having the largest user base.

Supports All Major OS

PHP can be run on top of major operating systems such as Windows, Linux, UNIX, Mac OSX and so on.

Free of Cost

PHP is an open source and 100% Free for use by anyone. This cuts down cost of production as well as hosting. For these reasons it enjoys popularity over other expensive scripting languages such as ASP, JSP and others.

Integration

PHP makes developers life easy as it can be integrated easily with any of the systems like MongoDB, Memcache, Pusher and more. More or less PHP applications can cater any verticals such as banking sectors, health/hospital industry, government sector or corporates and so on.

Frameworks

PHP developers can develop robust application within a very short time frame using a variety of frameworks like Symfony, Slim, Silex, Zend and Aiki. Each framework allows you to avail a set of benefits including code reuse, better session management and database access libraries.

Easier to fix problems

It is obvious that the web application development is not free from issues, however with PHP it is comparatively easier to troubleshoot than it’s counterparts. This is because with each request, PHP cleans up and starts over. So issue with one request does not affect another request.

Scalability

Scalability is always in demand be it for databases, hosting, or programming, scalability. PHP is built in such a way that you can easily increase your cluster size with grow of your projects.

Object Oriented

Java and Windows COM objects can be called called from PHP. Also PHP allows to create custom classes which in turn can be borrowed by other classes. This is one of the useful capabilities of PHP.

Speed

PHP does not take lot of system resource and operates much faster than other scripting languages. PHP maintains its speed even if it is used with other software. Since PHP is out for a long time, continuous effort is on to make it even better. As a result of which it is fairly stable compared to it’s counterparts.

While planning anything on CakePHP, you should always choose a reliable company like Andolasoft to handle your work. Get in touch to convert your ideas into app.

How To Generate PDF File In CakePHP

TCPDF is a free and open source software one of the widely used PHP libraries in the world. This is because of the fact that it already included in the most popular PHP-based CMS and applications including CakePHPHow to generate pdf file in cakephp.

The installation is pretty straight forward and easy-to-use in CakePHP Framework. Many web applications use this as output documents like invoices, contracts or just web pages in the PDF format.

 

Following are the steps to integrate TCPDF in CakePHP MVC framework.

Step 1:

  • Go to http://www.tcpdf.org and download the latest version of TCPDF zip file.
  • Then unzip the zip file and save under the Vendor folder in cakephp framework(app\vendors)
  • This creates a directory tcpdf there with tcpdf.php and more in it (app\vendors\tcpdf)
  •  You can configure the PDF file Like header Logo Image, Page Title, page Margin etc. in the TCPDF configure file (app->vendors->tcpdf-> tcpdf_config.php)

Step 2:

You can create your own header and footer page of your PDF file. Create a page “xtcpdf.php” under app/vendors with these contents as shown below.

App::import('Vendor','tcpdf/tcpdf');
class XTCPDF extends TCPDF
{
var $xheadertext = 'PDF created using CakePHP and TCPDF';
var $xheadercolor = array(0,0,200);
var $xfootertext = 'Copyright © %d XXXXXXXXXXX. All rights reserved.';
var $xfooterfont = PDF_FONT_NAME_MAIN ;
var $xfooterfontsize = 8 ;
/* Change header text and font size as per your requirement in the above variable*******/
function Header()
{
list($r, $b, $g) = $this->xheadercolor;
$this->setY(10); // shouldn't be needed due to page margin, but helas, otherwise it's at the page top
$this->SetFillColor($r, $b, $g);
$this->SetTextColor(0 , 0, 0);
$this->Cell(0,20, '', 0,1,'C', 1);
$this->Text(15,26,$this->xheadertext );
}
function Footer()
{
$year = date('Y');
$footertext = sprintf($this->xfootertext, $year);
$this->SetY(-20);
$this->SetTextColor(0, 0, 0);
$this->SetFont($this->xfooterfont,'',$this->xfooterfontsize);
$this->Cell(0,8, $footertext,'T',1,'C');
}
}
?>

Step 3:

Create your layout under app/views/layouts/pdf.ctp;

header("Content-type: application/pdf");
echo $content_for_layout;
?>

Step 4:

Here is the Controller code which will display output code of generating PDF file;

function view_pdf($id = null) {
if (!$id) {
$this->Session->setFlash('Sorry, there was no PDF selected.');
$this->redirect(array('action'=>'index'), null, true);
}
$this->layout = 'pdf'; //this will use the pdf.ctp layout
$this->render();
}

Step 5:

Create a page under your view directory (app/views/) named as “view_pdf.ctp” (this name can be change as per your controller method) and write your HTML code/PHP code.

The Horizons of CakePHP Application Development

CakePHP is an open-source web development framework for PHP. It came into prominence around 2006 and it was inspired by the Ruby on Rails framework, which was introduced around a year prior to it.

CakePHP follows MVC pattern architecture. Like RoR, it also follows the two key design features, DRY or “Don’t Repeat Yourself” and CoC or “Convention over Configuration”.

CakePHP development is a rapid development framework with thoughtful, coherent design and is well aided by friendly community contributions. It relies on a ORM (Object-Relation Model) regarding database query interface.

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Using CakePHP’s ORM, we can create, retrieve, update and delete related data into and from different database tables with simplicity and in a better way. There is no need to write complex SQL queries anymore.

Some of the key features of CakePHP are:

  • Flexible Licensing
  • Compatibility with PHP4 and PHP5
  • Integrated CRUD for database interaction and simplified queries
  • Application Scaffolding
  • Request dispatcher with good looking, custom URLs
  • Built-in Validation
  • Fast and flexible templating (PHP syntax, with helpers)
  • View Helpers for AJAX, JavaScript, HTML Forms and more
  • Security, Session, and Request Handling Components
  • Flexible access control lists
  • Data Sanitization
  • Flexible View Caching

Andolasoft Inc. offers quick and cost effective CakePHP development to built robust and scalable web applications for start-up and established business houses, institutions etc.

What Makes Offshore Software Development So Popular?

 

If you are looking for technical business solutions without creating a hole in your pocket, then offshore software development just fits the bill.

Be it standalone bespoke technical solutions to per-user oriented or multifaceted, corporate solutions; offshore software service providers understand the client’s needs and expectations and develop solutions accordingly.

Faster communication methods and timing flexibility have created a stirring impact on offshore software development companies.

As these companies are bestowed with skilled manpower and the best technological resources, clients from all over the world want to reap profits from their limited investments.

As per the latest survey, more than 90% of Fortune 500 companies outsource a certain part of their operations to offshore software development companies. And today, outsourcing in itself is a 60 billion dollar industry.

Cheap labor is not the only parameter to choose an offshore solution provider.

Specialized knowledge and expertise, knowledge of the clients’ industry, and experience of handling complex projects are some other factors that will ensure that you receive an excellent return on your investment.

Andolasoft provides a high-quality offshore software development service by leveraging the best in people, technologies, and processes.

The company is dedicated to reduce the operational cost of your company and to give it a technological advantage over your competitors.

Our technical experts are there to take care of your technical issues so that you can devote more time to your core business.

Over the years, the company has provided solutions par excellence to its global clientele. For an effective, cost-efficient, and flexible offshore software development service, Andolasoft is your trusted choice.