How to zero fill a number in PHP

A while ago I needed to automatically zero fill a number for a quoting system I was working on. I decided to browse the internet to search for a simple code snippit but I could only find code with a while loop that would keep adding zeroes untill the desired string length was reached. Although this seemed okay, I realized it could be done much cleaner, and most important, less draining for system resources. So I wrote the following function. Continue reading “How to zero fill a number in PHP”

Use PHP to get the number of items for a domain on Digg.com

Whilst working on my semi-automated SEO scan I wanted to get the number of listings for a given domain on some social bookmarking websites. Of course Digg.com is a very well-known and widely-used bookmarking website but sadly they don’t offer a nice XML or JSON API to check the number of listings. That’s why I wrote the following code to retrieve this number. Continue reading “Use PHP to get the number of items for a domain on Digg.com”

Web services and backward compatibility

About a year ago I was asked by a client to update their existing web service because of some changes in the way they wanted to process their sales data. Luckily this client has always understood the importance of a Service-Oriented Architecture ( SOA ) since they deal with large amounts of resellers who need to access, edit and create data. All I had to do was apply the changes to their web service. Continue reading “Web services and backward compatibility”