Batch programming tip #17: Moving/Copying hidden/system folders and files

A recent question about renaming a folder (on computing.net) brought to my attention the fact that move (which I usually use to rename folders) and also rename won't work on hidden/system files.

To avoid this 'issue' you must change the folder's system attributes.
First we define our original and destination folders.

set oldp=[define original folder here]
set newp=[define destination folder here]

Then we set the h (hidden) and s (system) attributes off (-h -s), move the folder, and switch the attributes back on again (+h +s).

attrib -h -s %oldp%
move %oldp% %newp%
attrib +h +s %newp%

You can also change all the file attributes within the folder, by using the /S modifier. And all (sub-)directories by using /D.

For instance:

attrib -h -s %oldp% /S /D

Will switch off the hidden and system attributes for (sub)folders and files in the %oldp% folder.

The same sort of thing happens with xcopy.
If you want to use xcopy on hidden/system files you must add the correct modifiers like so:

set oldp=[define original path here]
set newp=[define destination here]
xcopy %oldp% %newp% /H /S

Or only "visible" files will get copied.

I would love any additional input you may have about this.

Thoughts?

Symfony sandbox project

I recently heard of the Symfony project. It's an appealing free open-source PHP5 development framework licensed under the MIT license and I decided to give it a go.

For starters I downloaded the sandbox version from:
http://www.symfony-project.org/installation/1_1

I had an easy-PHP installation already up and running on my Windows 2000 system. So simply dropped the sandbox project under my www folder and followed the instructions on the Symfony website using mySQL as database manager:
http://www.symfony-project.org/tutorial/1_1/my-first-project

It was all pretty straight-forward except for a few "catches" detailed below.

#1 - the project uses php.exe on the command line to generate configuration files, PHP classes, etc. You really need to make sure to copy the php.ini file to the folder where the php.exe is located in order for the configuration to be taken into account. You can check which modules are available (and in effect, whether your latest php.ini is getting loaded properly) by typing

php -m

on the command line.

#2 - I also activated the xsl extension. This gets rid of some error messages that occur during database configuration and creation. I am not sure whether this makes an actual difference on the end result but was trying to clear any errors as I ran into them.

#3 - When I tried to access http://localhost/sf_sandbox/web/frontend_dev.php/comment or http://localhost/sf_sandbox/web/frontend_dev.php/post as specified in the tutorial, the pages wouldn't launch properly, I was getting database error messages.
To avoid this, I had to manually configure the www\sf_sandbox\config\database.yml configuration file:

all:
  propel:
    class: sfPropelDatabase
    param:
      phptype: mysql
      database: symfony_project
      dsn: 'mysql://root@localhost/symfony_project'

I changed all three parameters: phptype, database (use the database name you chose), and dsn (note that root is using an empty password to connect here).
For changes to take effect, make sure to clear the cache using:
php symfony cache:clear

#4 - In the middle of the tutorial, it tells you to start using your new website.
However, when you try to add a comment you get the following error:
Class "Post" must implement a "__toString" method to be rendered in a "sfWidgetFormPropelSelect" widget
To fix this, open the

sf_sandbox\lib\model\Post.php

and add a __toString method as follows:

class Post extends BasePost
{
  function __toString()
  {
    return $this->getTitle();
  }
}

To be 100% accurate, also change the sf_sandbox\apps\frontend\modules\comment\templates\editSuccess.php file so that the Post id label becomes Post title or simply Post since the post title is what we're actually seeing now we have added the __toString method in the Post class.

#5 - I couldn't get the following to work:

Next, open the modules/comment/templates/editSuccess.php and replace the following lines:

<tr>
<th>Post:
<td><?php echo object_select_tag($comment, 'getPostId', array (
'related_class' => 'Post',
)) ?></td>
</tr>


The original code is slightly different in the sandbox version and the replacement code wouldn't work. One way to avoid this issue is to set the default post id in your comment actions class.
Simply open your sf_sandbox\apps\frontend\modules\comment\actions\actions.class.php and add the following in the "executeCreate()" method:

$post=PostPeer::retrieveByPk(
  $this->getRequestParameter('post_id'));
if ($post)
{
  $this->form->setDefault('post_id', 
    $this->getRequestParameter('post_id'));
}

This simply pre-selects the post title in the form when you access the 'new comment' page from a given post's page by setting the default value of the drop-down choice list.

#6 - in the same file (sf_sandbox\apps\frontend\modules\comment\actions\actions.class.php). Instead of using the code from the tutorial, simply replace the redirect line with:
$this->redirect('post/show?id='.
$request->getParameter('comment[post_id]'));

This will redirect to the correct post rather than to the comment page.

Well, that's it for now. I haven't finished the tutorial yet. I have only made it to just before the Form Validation chapter. So still lots of fun to be had - stay tuned!

Thoughts in the meantime?

[EDIT: it looks like the Symfony Sandbox Project tutorial has been updated so some - if not all - of the above information may no longer be applicable.]

Me.dium - Power to the People

In a comment left on a previous post about Cuil not quite living up to previous expectations, Chris pointed me to the Me.dium search engine (built on Yahoo Search BOSS). This alpha-release search engine offers two search types: you can opt for traditional results but also decide to 'get social' and view the 'hottest' results according to what other people are viewing.

Me.dium.com has taken a different tack. We have a full web index, but we change the results based on the surfing activity of our user base (now over 2,000,000).

The searching activity data is gathered using the Me.dium search toolbar. Obviously, you don't have to install it yourself unless you actually want to become part of the crowd - but with this new "Power to the People" philosophy, it's being part of the crowd that empowers you as an individual surfer. Based on the tutorial, it seemed a little too invasive (teenager-ish?) for me: you can see which of your friends are online, what they are currently viewing, chat with them, etc. and, even if the feature can be disabled, I am not sure I want to share that amount of intimacy with my friends when at work or at home. But it's probably just one of those things I will change my mind about as more and more people choose to use it.

We all know Web 2.0 really is all about 'social': social networking, social bookmarking, social learning, you name it, it has social in front of it. Well, this new engine brings 'social' to the search industry.

When you use social search, you get extra information for every link in your result set:
- crowd rank: not sure how this works, perhaps there is a rank button on the toolbar, a bit like the Google page rank (?);
- velocity: whether site traffic from the crowd is stable, increasing or decreasing;
- recent activity: how 'hot' the site is (luke-warm, warm, hot);
- visitors present: whether anyone from the crowd is currently visiting;
- average visit duration: "short", "medium" or "long" (?);
- navigate from and to: how most of the crowd moves to or from the link.

So you actually get quite a lot of additional information about each search result.

It will be interesting to see in what way the search results are influenced by the crowd, I guess it could (hypothetically) lead to all sorts of biases, but also to a good way of measuring what most people are interested in or in fact (want to) believe.

I couldn't help but wonder whether the propagandists could get hold of this, but I get the feeling that's a typical Web-2.0 non-argument. A bit like the kind of argument you may have against corporate wikis/forums/blogs. The top 'guys' always have the gut feeling the system will be used and abused whereas in actual fact, the vast majority of people are pretty level-headed and once they get the hang of the system actually use it in constructive ways. It seems to me that the more people use this system, the better the results will be and the lesser the impact of small groups of people who may want to sway the search results one way or another.

And there is always the Yahoo-based standard search to fall back on if you are not getting what you want.

There were a couple of minor things I noted when using the search engine.
There was one feature I really missed: the word suggestions. For instance, I wasn't quite sure how to spell Musharraf so guessed at Musharaf, I was expecting the search engine to automatically suggest the correct spelling - it's a bad habit, but a great feature that most Google users have probably grown used to.

Another thing I found as an avid Googler who doesn't ever press the "I'm feeling lucky" button (shameful I know...), was that using the "I feel social" button really didn't come naturally. I think the location of the button and the use of the word 'feel' set the alarm bells a-ringing in a "don't-click-me" kind of way.

One last thing I felt was missing was the ability to sort the search results by crowd rank, recent activity, average visit duration, etc. as this could certainly increase search relevancy. But I guess there is only so much you can expect from an alpha release especially with this level of stability! :-)

So, Me.dium definitely looks promising, and it's really top-notch: if there were any glitches, I certainly didn't notice them. AND it's bringing something really new to the search market so it's worth staying tuned to see how this project will evolve and whether it can get hold of any significant share of the search market.

Thoughts?

Netbeans 6.5b released

The Netbeans 6.5b was released last week and can be downloaded here. The full installer weighs in at around 200Mb.

To my knowledge this is the first "release" to include the PHP module. The previous version, dubbed "Early Access For PHP" required a separate download and wasn't integrated into the usual Netbeans IDE which included the usual Java, Ruby, etc.

It's great to be able to seamlessly integrate PHP projects in this latest release!

Thoughts?

KeyCzar quickfix fixed

Some of you might recall my using a batch 'quickfix' in a previous post about Google KeyCzar: creating the RSA public and private keys using batch, to work around a small issue whereby filenames ended up being concatenated to the folder name (e.g. rsakeysmeta instead of rsakeys\meta).

A few hours after posting, I eureka-d that adding \ to the folder variables would probably fix it much more neatly - and now I have found the time to verify this, it does :-).

I fixed the previous post accordingly and here is the uninterrupted simplified version of the batch for anyone interested:

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

:init
set java=java
if exist "C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_05\bin\java.exe" set java="C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_05\bin\java.exe"
if exist "C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_07\bin\java.exe" set java="C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_07\bin\java.exe"
if not exist %java% goto java_nf

set parent=..
set keyczar=keyczar05b.jar
set gson=gson-1.1.1.jar
set log4j=log4j-1.2.15.jar

if not exist %parent%\%keyczar% goto keyczar_jar_nf
if not exist %parent%\%gson% goto gson_jar_nf
if not exist %parent%\%log4j% goto log4j_jar_nf

goto create_keys

:create_keys
set location=rsakeys\
set public=publickeys\

if not exist %location%%public% mkdir %location%%public%

echo Creating key set
%java% -classpath %parent%/%keyczar%;%parent%/%gson%;%parent%/%log4j% org.keyczar.KeyczarTool create --location=%location% --purpose=crypt --asymmetric=rsa
echo Creating private decryption key
%java% -classpath %parent%/%keyczar%;%parent%/%gson%;%parent%/%log4j% org.keyczar.KeyczarTool addkey --location=%location% --status=primary
echo Creating public encryption (primary) key
%java% -classpath %parent%/%keyczar%;%parent%/%gson%;%parent%/%log4j% org.keyczar.KeyczarTool pubkey --location=%location% --status=active --destination=%location%%public%
goto eof

:java_nf
echo Cannot find java
goto eof

:keyczar_jar_nf
echo Cannot find keyczar jar
goto eof

:gson_jar_nf
echo Cannot find gson jar
goto eof

:log4j_jar_nf
echo Cannot find log4j jar
goto eof

:eof
echo Press any key to quit
pause > NUL
goto blackhole

:blackhole

Well, that's it. Much neater and quite as functional!

Please refer to the previous post for more information on what is actually happening here.

You can also read the second part of the post which covers how to use the KeyCzar library in Java for asymmetric RSA encryption/decryption (using the keys we just created with the above batch file).

Thoughts?

Cuil, not that cool

So perhaps Cuil isn't as cool as they had made out when it was launched.

I was really enthusiastic about the Cuil search engine when it was first publicized but have returned to my 100% Google searching as it comes up with the results I am expecting, and thus increases my productivity. The Cuil features like drill-down and its well thought-out philosophy are great but get completely overshadowed by the engine's poor search results.

So how do I measure how good the results are? Well, really the way I do this is by comparing the results from Cuil to those that Google would give me. Which is probably very bad practice, but I guess that just highlights the fact Google really has become the de facto "best" search engine for most people. How many times have you heard "Google it", and how many times have you heard "Yahoo it"? See, that's what I thought.

It does leave me wondering whether in some cases it's the search engine giving poor results or me using poor search words. Perhaps the way I pick search words has changed to accomodate the way Google references its pages and that's what makes it easier for me to use Google than Cuil, for instance.

Still, Cuil does on occasion undoubtedly return disastrous results.
For instance, if I search for the following three words:
e-learning technologies karrer
I expect the first link to be the eLearning Technology blog by Tony Karrer.
Well although Cuil actually will provide a link to the blog (and not the main page at that!), it does so with the wrong picture and in fact places the correct picture under someone else's name! Ouch.

So it seems Google really does just go that extra mile... :-)

Thoughts?

Batch programming tip #16 (part 2): getting property values from an ini file

This is just a slight variation on the previous post on working with *.ini files.
Here we only retrieve property values but not sections or property names.

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

:init_vars
set ini_file=my.ini
goto show_values

:show_values
for /F "tokens=1,2 delims==" %%L in (%ini_file%) do (
 if not [%%M]==[] (
  echo Value: %%M
 )
)
goto eof

:eof
echo Press any key to quit
pause > NUL

Simple :-).

Thoughts?

Splashtop

A colleague recently pointed me to the Splashtop website: http://www.splashtop.com/ and then days later a discussion with friends brought it back to mind.

So what is Splashtop? It's a small Linux distribution which launches in a matter of seconds at bootup allowing you to almost instantly access the internet using a fully-fledged browser. The website offers some nice demos which give you the "feel" for the way it works and naturally, its impressive startup speed.

The following movie shows the basic Splashtop environment. Note that later versions have already been improved on with new functionalities!



It looks like it might be time to give up on that two-minute bootup wait before you look up your favourite recipe, check your email or look up a new road itinerary.

Splashtop is currently bundled with ASUS motherboards and notebooks.

Thoughts?

Google Keyczar - now available for Java 1.5

This is a quick update regarding a sidenote in yesterday's post:

... if you get a message like "incorrect class version, 50 should be 49" or something along those lines, it means you are not running the correct version of java (i.e. the KeyCzar classes were compiled with a later version).

Steve Weis, who originally developed keyCzar, very kindly confirmed this information this morning.

The class version error is indeed due to the fact that we're using Java 1.6. Unfortunately, that's not supported by some (all?) Mac users, so we're going to post a Java 1.5 Jar soon.

Well, for anyone interested the 1.5 Jar is already available at the KeyCzar website: http://www.keyczar.org/.

Have fun!

Google Keyczar - a Java encryption/decryption example

Google Keyczar is a new Google toolkit for data encryption. We saw in a previous post how to create the private and public key files for RSA encryption.

Let's now see how to use them by integrating the Keyczar library in a Java project.
It's actually extremely simple.

First, let's see the code from Bob's perspective. Bob encrypts the data using a public key which Alice has given him (and maybe other people). To do this we will use a class called BobsApp which will specifically handle encryption using the public key folder (you'll want to check its location: it should be rsakeys\publickeys\ and the rsakeys folder should be located at the same level as the BobsApp class file).


package keyczartest;

import org.keyczar.Encrypter;
import org.keyczar.exceptions.KeyczarException;

public class BobsApp
{
private Encrypter encrypter; // used to crypt

public BobsApp() throws KeyczarException
{
String publickey=this.getClass().getResource("rsakeys/publickeys").
getFile();
this.encrypter=new Encrypter(publickey);
}

public String process(String data) throws KeyczarException
{
if (data==null) return null;
return this.encrypter.encrypt(data);
}
}


Now, let's do the same thing from Alice's perspective. She will receive Bob's (and maybe other people's) encrypted messages, but she alone can decrypt them using her private key. (You'll want to check the private key folder location: it should be rsakeys and the rsakeys folder should be located at the same level as the BobsApp and AlicesApp class files).

This is the Java utility class which specifically handles decryption:

package keyczartest;

import org.keyczar.Crypter;
import org.keyczar.exceptions.KeyczarException;

public class AlicesApp
{

private Crypter crypter; // used to decrypt

public AlicesApp() throws KeyczarException
{
String privatekey=this.getClass().getResource("rsakeys").
getFile();
this.crypter=new Crypter(privatekey);
}

public String process(String data) throws KeyczarException
{
if (data==null) return null;
return this.crypter.decrypt(data);
}
}


Now, let's create our main method which we can use to run the project:

import keyczartest.AlicesApp;
import keyczartest.BobsApp;

public class Keyczarette
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
try
{
String secretText="For Alice's eyes only. Signed: Bob";
String bobsMessage=new BobsApp().process(secretText);
System.out.println("Bob sends: " + bobsMessage);
AlicesApp app=new AlicesApp();
String alicesMessage=new AlicesApp().process(bobsMessage);
System.out.println("What Alice reads: " + alicesMessage);
}
catch (Exception e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}


Just one last note, if you get a message like "incorrect class version, 50 should be 49" or something along those lines, it means you are not running the correct version of java (i.e. the KeyCzar classes were compiled with a later version).

Straight to the point! =D

Could it get any simpler than that?

Google Keyczar - creating the RSA public and private keys using batch

Google Keyczar made headline news on geek planet recently and I couldn't help but give it a go. It's a cryptographic toolkit for Python and Java and here is a quick look at how you can get it to work for Java on Windows.

You can use it to encrypt/decrypt using public/private keys or to sign content. What really interested me was to use the RSA asymmetric method as it has always really appealed to me. Just to recap' on how this works, the idea is that Alice uses two keys: a public key (which anyone and everyone can know) and a private key that only she knows. Anyone can send her an encrypted message using the public key. To decrypt the message you need the private key, so only Alice can read the message. Excellent.

For starters, here's a link to where you can get the keyczar jar library: http://www.keyczar.org/.

You will also need two dependencies:
- the gson jar from Google code:
http://code.google.com/p/google-gson/
- the apache log4j jar:
http://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.2/download.html

Also note: I think JRE 1.6 or more is required to run the jar properly.

There are several steps to getting this up and running:
1. We need to create the public and private key files. The keyczar toolkit provides command line utilities to do this.
2. We need to create the Java code which will encrypt Bob's message to Alice (using the public key), and decrypt Bob's message when it reaches Alice (using the private key) so that Alice, and only Alice, can read it.

This first post will cover how to create the public and private key files using the batch file shown below.

I will add a couple of notes as we go along to explain the various parts of the batch file.


@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion


We need to set up Java properly, so point this to a JRE on your machine.

:init
set java=java
if exist "C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_05\bin\java.exe" set java="C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_05\bin\java.exe"
if exist "C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_07\bin\java.exe" set java="C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_07\bin\java.exe"
if not exist %java% goto java_nf


Here we are defining the directory structure to be able to find the jar files which will be passed to the Java command. In my case the batch file is located in a script directory. The 3 jars (keyczar, gson and log4j) are all located on the same level as the script directory i.e. a level above the .bat file. This is why I set the parent variable to ..


set parent=..


Obviously check the exact jar names...


set keyczar=keyczar05b.jar
set gson=gson-1.1.1.jar
set log4j=log4j-1.2.15.jar

if not exist %parent%\%keyczar% goto keyczar_jar_nf
if not exist %parent%\%gson% goto gson_jar_nf
if not exist %parent%\%log4j% goto log4j_jar_nf

goto create_keys


Now we'll be calling the commands to create the keys.


:create_keys
set location=rsakeys\
set public=publickeys\

if not exist %location%%public% mkdir %location%%public%


You will want to make sure each of the following three %java% commands are actually on one line and not cut up as they are here.

Right, first command, create the key set. Note that we'll be using asymmetric RSA.

echo Creating key set
%java% -classpath %parent%/%keyczar%;%parent%/%gson%;%parent%/%log4j% org.keyczar.KeyczarTool create --location=%location% --purpose=crypt --asymmetric=rsa


Second java command: create a key. This will be the secret key. Its status must be set to primary because that means it can be used for decrypting.

echo Creating private decryption key
%java% -classpath %parent%/%keyczar%;%parent%/%gson%;%parent%/%log4j% org.keyczar.KeyczarTool addkey --location=%location% --status=primary


Finally, we create the public key and use a "public" destination for it.

echo Creating public encryption key
%java% -classpath %parent%/%keyczar%;%parent%/%gson%;%parent%/%log4j% org.keyczar.KeyczarTool pubkey --location=%location% --status=active --destination=%location%%public%
goto eof

:java_nf
echo Cannot find java
goto eof

:keyczar_jar_nf
echo Cannot find keyczar jar
goto eof

:gson_jar_nf
echo Cannot find gson jar
goto eof

:log4j_jar_nf
echo Cannot find log4j jar
goto eof

:eof
echo Press any key to quit
pause > NUL
goto blackhole

:blackhole


That's it. Once you run this, you should get the following results:

rsakeys\
    publickeys\
        1
        meta
    1
    meta

Basically two files for each key: a meta file which describes the key and another file which contains the key itself.

If you're interested there is some excellent documentation on the keyczar wiki at:
http://code.google.com/p/keyczar/w/list

It gives real insight into the key metadata, the various possible values and what they actually mean.

Thoughts for now?

[EDIT: For the second part of this post follow the link: Google KeyCzar Java encryption/decryption]

Kolb's learning styles

An interesting article about Kolb's theory on experiential learning and learning styles model:
http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htm

What better way to learn than through concrete experience?

Batch programming tip #16: Reading a property from an INI file

You are going to start thinking batch an I are having a love-hate relationship but there was an interesting question on computing.net recently. Someone asked how to get a property from an INI file and/or print things to an ini file or text file.

This was my effort at it.

File: - my.ini -

[provider]
name=ETH
organization=Stardust

[file]
server=192.168.254.42 ; use IP address
port=8080
file=wonderful.txt


The aim of the following batch is to retrieve the server IP address.
To do this we read all the lines of the ini file (that is each first "token" of every line, but because the property=value entities don't contain any default delimiters the first token will actually be the property=value pair on each line).

Then we try matching the beginning of the line with our property name.
If it matches, bingo, get the remaining string value and output it to ini/txt.

File: - ini_bat.bat -

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

:init_vars
:: this is our ini file path
set ini_file=my.ini
:: this is the key for which we want to retrieve a value
set key=server
:: this is the length of our key word (e.g. 'server')
set keylen=6
:: this is the index at which the equal sign should be
set /a eqsign=%keylen%+1
:: tmp dir name (should be empty)
set tmp_dir=tmp000
:: make temp dir
if not exist %tmp_dir% mkdir %tmp_dir%
goto get_key

:get_key
set tmp_file=%tmp_dir%\tmp.txt
:: this read the first token of every line, shouldn't be spaces in the ini file properties
for /F %%L in (%ini_file%) do (
set line=%%L
set linestart=!line:~0,%keylen%!

if !linestart!==%key% (
set value=!line:~%eqsign%!
goto output_value
)
)

:: this will erase existing %tmp_dir%\new.ini and %tmp_dir%\new.txt files

:output_value
echo Outputting value to ini file
echo server=%value% > %tmp_dir%\new.ini
echo Outputting value to text file
echo The value is: %value% > %tmp_dir%\new.txt
goto eof

:eof
echo Press any key to quit
pause > NUL
goto blackhole

:blackhole


And there you have it!

Some obvious improvements could be:
- setting the key dynamically (this also means computing the key length on the fly).
- including adequate behaviour if the property definitions include spaces
(e.g. server = 192.0.2.42)

Thoughts?

Birthday Week

Well, this is really a one off, because for once (!) I shall be talking about my private life. Expect crazyness. Not.

This week is my birthday week and I am lucky to have lots of things going on this year so please forgive my short absence from the blogosphere... and, fear not, I'll be back soon with new riveting posts :D.

Among things I would like to explore:
- software licenses
- impersonal e-learning
- PowerPoint presentations
- Splashtop
- Google Translation
- geeky programming stuff

And lots of other things too.

'See' you soon I hope ;-),

Elinor

Object-oriented form rendering using PHP, part 3

Back to a couple of posts that date back to ages ago:
Object-oriented form rendering using PHP, part 1
Object-oriented form rendering using PHP, part 2

Basically, I had said at the time I would be redesigning lots of the code. Which is now done! Just one update compared to what was previously said, the client-side rules are added to the onsubmit event of the form.

And this is the result from the server perspective (login form):

$login_form=new HTML_Form('login',$_SERVER['PHP_SELF'], 'POST', 'login');

// identifier
$f_identifier=new Text('identifier', 'identifier', '', 15, 15);
$f_identifier->setLabel(Toolkit::get_lang('identifier'));
$f_identifier->addOnSubmitRule('trim');
$f_identifier->addOnSubmitRule('required', 'This field is required');
$login_form->add($f_identifier);

// password
$f_password=new Password('password', 'password', '', 15, 15);
$f_password->setLabel(Toolkit::get_lang('password'));
$f_password->addOnSubmitRule('required', 'This field is required');
$login_form->add($f_password);

// secure form
$login_form->secure();

// submit button
$submit=new Submit();
$login_form->add($submit);

// display form
$login_form->display();

if ($login_form->validate())
{
// handle POST information, etc.
}


First I create an HTML_Form object to which I can add form elements like Text or Password objects. I can add rules to my form elements using the addOnSubmitRule method.

This is the resulting form:

<form action="/stardust/zencity/main/home.php" method="POST" id="login" name="login" onSubmit="reset_errors(); var ret=true;ret&=trim('identifier');ret&=required('identifier','This field is required');ret&=required('password','This field is required');if (!ret) return false;">

<label for="identifier">identifier* : </label>
<input id="identifier" name="identifier" type="text" size="15" maxlength="15"/>
<span id='error_identifier' name='error_identifier'></span><br/>

<label for="password">password* : </label>
<input id="password" name="password" type="password" size="15" maxlength="15"/>
<span id='error_password' name='error_password'></span><br/>

<input id="seckey" name="seckey" type="hidden" value="BcfaGvQEpqvJujGv90nz6P10zEBqgOBUp9X3J0aXrebdf9tUoD1DA1hv28e5tlkv"/><br/>

<input type="submit" value="ok"/><br/>

</form>


The validate() method then checks the form (e.g. makes sure it has been submitted with the correct security key).
Some of the goodies are:
- the required fields' labels are automatically appended with * sign;
- the calls to JS code are automatically generated and most of the checking happens on the client-side, to help avoid server overload for simple rules (like trim, minimum length requirements, email validity, etc.);
- error zones are automatically created, these are used by the Javascript code to show error messages when the client-side rules are not met (e.g. required field empty);
- you can seamlessly add to the code behind all this: new rules, new types of elements (for instance, I have designed a small captcha - which still needs tuning mind you - which I can create with: new Captcha('captcha', 'captcha'), and then add to form using the usual add() method; simple as that).

Well, hopefully more on this project soon to explain what's actually happening behind the scenes.

Batch programming summary

So been there, done that, time to move on from batch.
But before that, a quick list of all the batch programming scripts already available here:

Variables and spaces
Using CD /D
The Boring Black Hole
Working with arguments, part 1
Working with arguments, part 2
Working with arguments, part 3
Using CON... or not
How to clear the log file
Getting the batch file path
Retrieving argument file size
Comparing files by size
Reading from a file: part 1
Reading from a file, part 2: looping
Reading from a file, part 3: looping, part 2
Using FOR /D
Making and calling a subroutine, part 1
Making and calling a subroutine, part 2
Using The Substring Equivalent
Creating a timestamp
Using setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
The difference between :: and REM
Getting file information
Using help to help yourself (part 1)
Using help to help yourself (part 2): publishing batch help information in HTML format