Sometimes you need to get the domain name from the page referring to your page... You don't need the whole url/path/page, just the domain... You also don't need/want to worry about the 'www.' at the beginning, that's if of course it's there.... just the domain name...

$justDomain = str_replace('www.','',parse_url($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'], PHP_URL_HOST));

This will output something like jonmoore.co.uk

A simple function that just helps if you're processing some user generated input and the user seems to have problems using uppercase letters... like for their name, etc....

#
#	Quick function to first switch all words to lowercase,
#	then capitalise the first letter of each word.
#
function flattenAndFatten($word){
	$word = strtolower($word); // Lowercase
	$word = ucfirst($word); // Capitalised
	return $word;
}

It is used like this:

$name = 'jon Moore';
$betterName = flattenAndFatten($name);
echo $betterName;

This will output Jon Moore

Setting values in a config file is a great way to store data in one place, that can be accessed by lots of other pages... and a great way to change things quickly when a site goes live.

However, sometimes you want to store several things that are similar, so an array would be a good idea... This is how it's used in CodeIgniter...

The following is in the config/config.php file:

You wouldn't think was so hard, but I often come across this when processing textarea input in a contact form, into the email to the client....

A long story cut short... the solution I found was below:

$msg = '<p>Address: <br />'.str_ireplace(array("\r\n",'\r\n'),'<br />', $address)."</p>";

The format is simply str_ireplace(array("\r\n",'\r\n'),'<br />', $addressVariable);

//
//   Convert database date to something more user friendly
//
function userFriendlyDbDate($date){
   $time = strtotime($date);
   return date('d/m/Y H:i', $time);
}

... and the other way round, so converts to database date format...

//
//   Convert date to database date format
//
function dpDateToDbDate($date){
   $time = strtotime($date);
   return date('Y-m-d', $time);
}

Email validation is something that is needed in a variety of situations, but I’ve always struggled to find a good one…. Well, here are 2!

The first is something I found online somewhere, and has been modified a little…

A good logout script is needed in most applications, and here’s the one I use. I have this script in a ‘config’ file that I call at the beginning of every file in the site, so you can logout from any page…

if(isset($_GET['logout'])){ // trigger if ?logout is in the url
	$_SESSION = array();
	if(isset($_COOKIE[session_name()])){
   		setcookie(session_name(), '', time()-42000, '/');
	}
	session_destroy();
	header ('location: /'); // redirect to root
	exit();
}

To trigger it, simply add ‘?logout‘ after a url path, i.e. www.mydomain.com/?logout.

As the title says

// create a function called for escaping data
function escape_data($data){
   $data = ereg_replace("[^A-Za-z0-9]", "",$data);
   $data = str_replace('\\','',$data);
   $data = strtolower($data);
   $data = mysql_escape_string(trim($data));
   return $data;
}

//
//   Convert a date from jQuery 'Date picker' date to the database date format
//
function dpDateToDbDate($date){
$time = strtotime($date);
return date('Y-m-d', $time);
}

//
//   Convert Text to 'Safe Url'
//

// Mark Jacksons Function
function safeURL($txt,$allowSpace=false,$allowCaps=false) {
	$find = array('/à|á|â|ã|ä|å/', '/ç/', '/è|é|ê|ë/', '/ì|í|î|ï/', '/ñ/', '/ð|ó|ò|ô|õ|ö|ø/', '/ù|ú|û|ü/', '/ý|ÿ/');
	$replace = array('a', 'c', 'e', 'i', 'n', 'o', 'u', 'y');
	$txt = trim($txt);
	$txt = preg_replace($find,$replace,$txt);
	if(!$allowSpace) { $txt = str_replace(' ','-',$txt); }
	// remove all other unwanted characters
	if(!$allowCaps) { $txt = strtolower($txt); }
	$pattern = ($allowCaps) ?