I started out by trying the following:

var output = document.form1.myTextarea.value.replace("\n", "<br />");

This kind of worked but only replaced the first line break. I then remembered from previous posts that the JavaScript replace() function will only swap out the first occurrence of a string.

A quick change was required to the code as follows:

var output = document.form1.myTextarea.value.replace(/\n/g, "<br />");

By turning the first parameter into a regular expression and enabling ‘global’ matching (\g), all line breaks were now being converted as expected.

PHP comes with a set of useful functions to deal with common FTP operations. What I want to show you in this post however is, in conjuntion with these functions, how to improve the connection aspect and add a failsafe should a connection not be available. I find this especially effective for scripts left running as a background process.

Let’s take a look at the function:

function connect_to_ftp($ftp_host, $ftp_user, $ftp_pass, $retries)
{
	$connected = false;
	$retry = 0;

	// Keep looping until connected or met no. of retries if $retries is not zero
	while (!$connected && ($retries==0 || ($retries>0 && $retry<$retries)))
	{
		// try connecting to host
		$ftp_conn = ftp_connect($ftp_host);

		if ($ftp_conn)
		{
			// connection was successful. now try to login
			$ftp_login = ftp_login($ftp_conn, $ftp_user, $ftp_pass);

			if ($ftp_login)
			{
				// login was successful. let's get outta here...
				return $ftp_conn;
			}
			else
			{
				echo "Unable to login to ".$ftp_host." using ".$ftp_user.":".$ftp_pass."\n";
			}
		}
		else
		{
			echo "Unable to establish FTP connection to ".$ftp_host."\n";
		}

		sleep(5); // sleep for 5 seconds before trying again

		$retry++;
	}

	return $ftp_conn;
}

And an example of using the function:

// initialise FTP connection details
$ftp_host = 'ftp.mysite.com';
$ftp_user = 'username';
$ftp_pass = 'password';
$retries = 0; // Number of maximum retries. Set to 0 for unlimited

// returned is an FTP connection as a resource for use in other functions
$ftp_conn = connect_to_ftp($ftp_host, $ftp_user, $ftp_pass, $retries);

echo 'FTP Connection: '.$ftp_conn;

As a result of the above I needed a way to bring markers to the front when the user hovered their mouse over them. I’ve included the code below but first let’s start with a demonstration of the problem faced and how the code helps:

Try rolling over the markers and you’ll see that the one to the rear will come to the front. This isn’t just limited to two markers either. It will work regardless of the number of markers shown on the map.

Ok, so onto the code:

var map;
// array of markers added to the map
// used at a later date
var markers = new Array();
// a global variable used to store the highest zIndex
// saves calculating it repeatedly
var highestZIndex = 0;

function initialize() {

	/* SETUP MAP */
	var myLatlng = new google.maps.LatLng(52.06768, -1.33758);
	var mapOptions = {
		center: myLatlng,
		zoom: 10,
		mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP
	}
	map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById("map_canvas"), mapOptions);

	/* ADD 1st MARKER */
	var markerOptions = {
		position: new google.maps.LatLng(52.06768, -1.32058),
		map: map,
		zIndex:1 // important!
	};
	var marker = new google.maps.Marker(markerOptions);
	markers.push(marker);
	// assign a custom variable to this marker containing the zIndex
	marker.set("myZIndex", marker.getZIndex());

	// add mouseover and mouseout events to first marker
	google.maps.event.addListener(marker, "mouseover", function() {
		getHighestZIndex();
		this.setOptions({zIndex:highestZIndex});
	});
	google.maps.event.addListener(marker, "mouseout", function() {
		this.setOptions({zIndex:this.get("myZIndex")});
	});

	/* ADD 2nd MARKER */
	var markerOptions = {
		position: new google.maps.LatLng(52.06768, -1.33758),
		map: map,
		zIndex:2 // important!
	};
	var marker = new google.maps.Marker(markerOptions);
	markers.push(marker);
	// assign a custom variable to this marker containing the zIndex
	marker.set("myZIndex", marker.getZIndex());

	// add mouseover and mouseout events to second marker
	google.maps.event.addListener(marker, "mouseover", function() {
		getHighestZIndex();
		this.setOptions({zIndex:highestZIndex+1});
	});
	google.maps.event.addListener(marker, "mouseout", function() {
		this.setOptions({zIndex:this.get("myZIndex")});
	});

}

function getHighestZIndex() {

	// if we haven't previously got the highest zIndex
	// save it as no need to do it multiple times
	if (highestZIndex==0) {
		if (markers.length>0) {
			// loop through markers
			for (var i=0; i<markers.length; i++) {
				tempZIndex = markers[i].getZIndex();
				// if this zIndex is the highest so far
				if (tempZIndex>highestZIndex) {
					highestZIndex = tempZIndex;
				}
			}
		}
	}
	return highestZIndex;

}

One important thing to note regarding the above is that markers must have a zIndex option set, either by specifying it when adding the marker initially or by using the setOption() function. Without a zIndex, the function getZindex() will return ‘undefined’.

All was going well and I was able to connect to the server remotely as a standard user with no problem at all. When I came to upload a file however I started to get the following error:

550 Access is denied

The Solution

After a bit of investigation I managed to solve the problem by following the steps below:

1. Open the ‘Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager’. You should be able to find this in your Start menu under ‘Administrative Tools’.

2. Once opened, right-click your FTP site and select ‘Edit Permissions…’ from the menu:

3. Select the ‘Security’ tab.

4. Click the ‘Users’ group. You can see from the permissions shown underneath that by default this group doesn’t have ‘Write’ permissions:

5. Click ‘Edit…’ and select to allow the ‘Write’ permission:

6. Click ‘OK’ to save the changes.

Once the above change has been performed you should now be able to successfully upload files without problem.

Whilst recently playing with EPC graphs from a programmatic point of view I couldn’t find an EPC graph split into all it’s individual parts. As a result I created my own set of images and include it for download from the link below:

Download Here

Here’s a preview of whats included:

The problem I faced however was, if I added one or more blank lines within these <code></code> tags it would completely split up what was before the new line and what was after. Allow me to show you an example of what I mean:

This is a line of text with a blank line after it.

This is the second line of text with a blank line before it.

See how it looks like two separate code snippets?

The Solution

The solution turned out to relatively simple. All that was needed was to add a &nbsp; (non-breaking space) character or <br /> tag on the blank line and it would keep the code block complete around all lines.

I’ve include below an example where I place a <br /> tag on the blank line in the middle:

This is a line of text with a blank line after it.

This is the second line of text with a blank line before it.

The error reads as follows:

Unable to download somefile.php from yoursite.com.

Internet Explorer was unable to open this site. The requested site is
either unavailable or cannot be found. Please try again later.

After looking into the problem it turned out that the problem was down to the PHP headers being sent when outputting the file, inparticular the ‘Cache-Control’ header. If this header is not being set, or is not being set correctly you can start to experience problems.

The Solution

Previously I wasn’t using the aforementioned ‘Cache-Control’ header but apparently setting it to ‘no-cache’ or ‘no-store’ will have the same negative effect. For me the answer was to set it to ‘private’ or to set it with a blank value. Like so:

header("Cache-Control: private");

Or:

header("Cache-Control: ");

The site in question was also being used over SSL but I’m not sure if this also played a role. Regardless, the above worked and it kept our IE8 users happy.

Whilst recently building my first Facebook app, one of the things I wanted to do was share ownership with another developer so we could both work on it and share other apps in the future. When trying to add this other user I kept getting an error returned claiming that they were not a verified user.

When looking into how to resolve this I saw a number of possible causes mentioned across the web, from the app being in ‘Sandbox’ mode, to groups not being setup correctly.

None of these proposed solutions worked and after digging a little further I found this page on Facebook help:

How do I verify my developer account?

It turns out that to be added to a role for a Facebook app you need to verify your account via phone or by adding a credit card. After trying the steps explained on the page above I was then able to add the second developer successfully.

DELETE FROM
	`my_table`
WHERE
	`my_value`='FooBar';

Easy right? Now, the next part is where I was going wrong and I’m guessing is the same in your case. The next statement shows how you might first try to perform the DELETE with a JOIN based on other MySQL syntax:

DELETE FROM
	`my_table`
INNER JOIN `second_table` ON `second_table`.`id_column`=`my_table`.`id_column`
WHERE
	`my_value`='FooBar';

By running the above you’ll get the following error:

#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'INNER JOIN `second_table` ON `second_table`.`id_column`=`my_table`.`id_column` WHERE `my_va' ne 1

The Solution

Sticking with the query above we can get it to work with a simple amendment. All we need to do is put the name of the table we’re deleting from between the words ‘DELETE’ and ‘FROM’ like so:

DELETE `my_table` FROM
	`my_table`
INNER JOIN `second_table` ON `second_table`.`id_column`=`my_table`.`id_column`
WHERE
	`my_value`='FooBar';

Solution One – Session Directory Not Writable

This first solution wasn’t relevant in my case but I did see it mentioned a few times on my travels as a very likely resolution to the problem mentioned above and thought it worth a mention it here.

When you’re logged into SugarCRM it uses PHP sessions to store information about your current visit. This solution suggests that the directory where this session information is stored is not writable and therefore SugarCRM is unable to continue past the login screen.

So where is this directory? The first place to look is in your SugarCRM configuration file. This can found in the root of your SugarCRM installation and is in a file called config.php. Within this PHP file is a reference to where sessions will be stored. If this contains a valid path then ensure SugarCRM has permission to write to it.

If the above path in config.php is blank then SugarCRM will use the path set in the php.ini file. You can view what this is set to by creating a PHP file and entering the following:

echo ini_get("session.save_path");

Solution Two – Disk Out Of Space

The other possible cause of the error was that the disk where SugarCRM is located was out of space which was the case in my scenario. By simply deleting a few old backups and cleaning down unused files I was then able to login again immediately.