That ol'time Death and Resurrection show (part 3)

It occurs to me I haven't mentioned the progress I've made on repairing the damage to my network.

Larkin: Replaced the motherboard, and got it to run all of 10 minutes. Then, upon reboot, the hard drive failed. This led me to believe that the power supply was faulty (seems like the most logical connection between the two failed components, and I know the electricity in our apartment is... less good). That has been replaced, and a new hard drive is in the works.

the SquareOne: I shipped it back to Quad MicroWorks, and they shipped it back, fully functional and with the original hard drive (saving me a ton of data reloading). Great communication from them (A+++ in ebay-speak). Unfortunately, for the applications that I need to run, it will not do as a web server. It'll host my basic webpage for now, until I can get a more powerful, dedicated box. Then its just a matter of fighting my lousy Comcast connection. Oh, I can't wait the end of the ISP monopolies...

Berman: Still can't use the iSight, but I can connect it to the new TV, and man, what a picture! As soon as my thesis work is done, I'll get it into the shop.

Pearl: I think I finally fixed the Javascript error, as well as the problem that was causing MS Word to crash whenever a browser window was open along side. This system is also currently running dual monitors, until Larkin is back up.

My old laptop: Dead as a doornail. I really wish those RAM chips I bought hadn't failed, because even a 128 MB boost would be handy... maybe I can find a sweet deal on craigslist.


More minor updates when they occur, and I have the time.

Passing variables between Javascript and PHP

First off, an apology for not blogging in so long; I'm in the thick of my final semester, and most of my time goes towards writing my thesis or working on my independent project (likely to be mentioned in a later post). But this material I just created for work is good enough, I think, that it's worth sharing.


Javascript and PHP, when used together, can make pretty much anything you desire in a website. You use your PHP to talk to your databases, generate dynamic content, and hold session information, while your Javascript can refine the user interface, adding options and making changes to the window on the fly.

But what if you need to get these two technologies to talk, securely? PHP is rendered server-side, before the page is produced and sent to the client. Thus, you can easily send PHP variables to a Javascript, if you don't mind their values being known to the user. However, if you need to keep your PHP variables safely server-side, how can you get Javascript to send its variables along to PHP?

Here's what I came up with: I call it "12th Hour Javascript", which will make sense shortly. The basic premise:

1. write a PHP script that takes in a URL variable ($_GET), runs whatever safe server-side function necessary, then outputs a Javascript function that simply returns the output of the PHP function.
2. write a Javascript function that adds an inclusion of the above file, taking in whatever variables and tacking them onto the URL of the src.
3. Call the function in 2) in one event, and the function in 1) in an immediate, subsequent event. 2) will pass the URL parameters to 1) as it includes it in the HTML file. the function in 1) will then be available for the next event.

Sound vague? Some example code may help.

ourscript.php:
function php_js() {
<?php
function core($parameter){
// Do stuff
return $output
}
$js_return = core($_GET['URL_param']);
echo "return " . $js_return . ";";
?>
}

Our Javascript function:
function twelfth_hour() {
var html_doc = document.getElementsByTagName('head').item(0);
var js = document.createElement('script');
js.setAttribute('language', 'javascript');
js.setAttribute('type', 'text/javascript');
js.setAttribute('src', 'Ourscript.php?URL_param='+document.SOME_ELEMENT.parameter.value);
html_doc.appendChild(js);
return false;
}

Using the functions in an HTML form:
<input value="go" onmousedown="twelfth_hour();" onclick="php_js();" type="submit" / >


As you see, the second function (twelfth_hour) will run first, and add a new Javascript to the document, with the source equaling ourscript.php?URL_param=parameter. Ourscript.php takes that parameter, processes it as we like, and gives us the output. If a user were to look at Ourscript.php, all they'd see would be a function that returns a value; all the inner workings are in PHP and thus hidden.

Keep in mind that the calls to these functions must exist in separate events. Trying to run them together results in an undefined error for php_js(), since it hasn't been included into the document yet. Javascript functions do not execute line-by-line, and perhaps not even function by function. However, event by event, you can keep one step ahead of your Javascript, and provide it with the dynamically-generated, PHP-based scripts you need.

Minor tweaks and refinements may be necessary, given your particular application and server configuration.

Comments are welcome.