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You must unlearn what you have learned. This article contains obsolete data. It reflects a Dark Brotherhood policy, position, or object that has been removed or replaced. It is preserved here for historical purposes only and should not be used/referenced.
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General
- All associative arrays should use single quotes around element names.
- All global variables should be referred to using the
$GLOBALS['VAR_NAME'] syntax.
- Super global variables should be used as opposed to relying on register_globals being on
- A given include should not be done repeatedly in the same script.
- A closing PHP tag (
?>) at the end of the file is extraneous and should be removed to prevent unexpected whitespace output. See: Zend File Formatting Standards
- Hard coded paths should be avoided whenever possible.
- Function and method names should be all lowercase, with underscores separating words:
my_function() rather than myFunction().
- Any operation that is being done repeatedly in the application should be functionalized. Functions or Object-Oriented PHP should be used whenever possible.
- Passwords that appear in PHP code must be base64 encoded, then decoded when utilized.
- API classes should be written in preference to functions in the global scope.
- When possible, write code in distinct, testable chunks. (See Unit Testing below.)
Global Variables
- Global variables should be all uppercase and use
$GLOBALS where appropriate. Ex. $GLOBALS['MY_GLOBAL_VAR']
- Local variables should NEVER be in all uppercase.
The following global variables should be defined for every script:
| Variable
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Purpose
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Example
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$GLOBALS['BASE_DIR']
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This is the base directory for the application and should not be hard coded if possible. Used by PSUSmarty and PSUTemplate to create a unique template cache directory.
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/var/htdocs/myapp/subdir
dirname(__FILE__)
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$GLOBALS['BASE_URL']
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This is the base URL for the application and should be a full relative path.
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/webapp/subdir/
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$GLOBALS['TEMPLATES']
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Full path to your application's templates directory. Required if using DJBTemplate.
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$GLOBALS['BASE_DIR'] . '/templates';
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$GLOBALS['TITLE']
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Application title, as displayed in templates by DJBTemplate. Required if using DJBTemplate.
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"APE"
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Templating
- All files that include XHTML and conditional PHP must be separated into a .html and a .tpl file using Smarty. Conditional PHP and HTML code should never exist in the same file.
- Exception: high traffic content may follow other rendering guidelines due to performance.
Database Abstraction
- Database abstraction with ADOdb should be used when connecting to databases.
- Database connections should be opened using the registry, i.e. tools::db('djb').
- Registry database shortcuts should be defined centrally in the tools class.