The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Reason #13 I hate PHP

I'm making sure that the various branches of “Project: Leaflet” are consistent when I notice that configuration.php, which allows one to change various settings, is not displaying at all. There are no errors, just a blank webpage. Usually, I just run the page at the command line to see what might be up:

[spc]XXXXXXXXX:~/projects/nlm/htdocs/nlm>php configuration.php 
Content-type: text/html
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.3.9

[spc]XXXXXXXXX:~/projects/nlm/htdocs/nlm>

Okay, nothing there. Let's see if there's an option to PHP to tell me more:

[spc]XXXXXXXXX:~/projects/nlm/htdocs/nlm>php -h
Usage: php [-q] [-h] [-s] [-v] [-i] [-f <file>] 
       php <file> [args...]
  -a               Run interactively
  -C               Do not chdir to the script's directory
  -c <path>|<file> Look for php.ini file in this directory
  -n               No php.ini file will be used
  -d foo[=bar]     Define INI entry foo with value 'bar'
  -e               Generate extended information for debugger/profiler
  -f <file>        Parse <file>.  Implies '-q'
  -h               This help
  -i               PHP information
  -l               Syntax check only (lint)
  -m               Show compiled in modules
  -q               Quiet-mode.  Suppress HTTP Header output.
  -s               Display colour syntax highlighted source.
  -v               Version number
  -w               Display source with stripped comments and whitespace.
  -z <file>        Load Zend extension <file>.

Hmm … that “lint” option seems promising. Let's try that.

[spc]XXXXXXXXX:~/projects/nlm/htdocs/nlm>php -l configuration.php 
Errors parsing configuration.php
[spc]XXXXXXXXX:~/projects/nlm/htdocs/nlm>

Well, that was spectacularly informative. Why even bother with the option if you aren't going to give any useful information?

Sigh.

Obligatory Picture

[The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades]

Obligatory Contact Info

Obligatory Feeds

Obligatory Links

Obligatory Miscellaneous

You have my permission to link freely to any entry here. Go ahead, I won't bite. I promise.

The dates are the permanent links to that day's entries (or entry, if there is only one entry). The titles are the permanent links to that entry only. The format for the links are simple: Start with the base link for this site: https://boston.conman.org/, then add the date you are interested in, say 2000/08/01, so that would make the final URL:

https://boston.conman.org/2000/08/01

You can also specify the entire month by leaving off the day portion. You can even select an arbitrary portion of time.

You may also note subtle shading of the links and that's intentional: the “closer” the link is (relative to the page) the “brighter” it appears. It's an experiment in using color shading to denote the distance a link is from here. If you don't notice it, don't worry; it's not all that important.

It is assumed that every brand name, slogan, corporate name, symbol, design element, et cetera mentioned in these pages is a protected and/or trademarked entity, the sole property of its owner(s), and acknowledgement of this status is implied.

Copyright © 1999-2024 by Sean Conner. All Rights Reserved.