phpize not found

Spechal — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:12:57 +0000

This error is typically generated when you don’t have the PHP development libraries installed.

Installing the libraries via repository is the easiest and quickest fix.

For Fedora/Red Hat:
yum install php5-dev

For Ubuntu/Debian:
apt-get install php5-dev

Python MySQL Associative Array

Spechal — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:26:04 +0000

By default, the MySQLdb module to access a MySQL database returns the data as an integer indexed array. Sometimes this is not desirable and an associative array is preferred, such as the mysql_fetch_assoc function in PHP. In addition, we will be using the pprint module which is similar PHP’s print_r

Here is the Python equivalent:

import MySQLdb
import pprint
# connect to the database here
db = MySQLdb.connect(...)
c = db.cursor(cursorclass=MySQLdb.cursors.DictCursor)
query = "SELECT `name`, `address` FROM `table`"
c.execute(query)
rows = c.fetchall()
c.close()
pprint.pprint(rows) # i.e. print_r($rows)

Hope that helps someone.

PHP function to validate MySQL UUID or GUID

Spechal — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:59:51 +0000

/**
   *  Function to validate a generated GUID / UUID
   *  @param string $guid GUID
   *  @return bool
   */
  function validGUID($guid){
    return preg_match('#^[a-z0-9]{8}-[a-z0-9]{4}-[a-z0-9]{4}-[a-z0-9]{4}-[a-z0-9]{12}$#', $guid);
  }

PHP function to emulate MySQL UUID

Spechal — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:58:15 +0000

/**
   *  uuid
   *
   *  uuid() simply replicates MySQL's UUID function, which returns a 36
   *  character "random" hash (32 alphanumeric, 4 dashes).
   *  @return string
   */
  function uuid(){
    return sprintf('%04x%04x-%04x-%04x-%04x-%04x%04x%04x',
      mt_rand(0, 0xffff), mt_rand(0, 0xffff), mt_rand(0, 0xffff),
      mt_rand(0, 0x0fff) | 0x4000,
      mt_rand(0, 0x3fff) | 0x8000,
      mt_rand(0, 0xffff), mt_rand(0, 0xffff), mt_rand(0, 0xffff));
  }

PHP function to emulate Excel NormSInv

Spechal — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:58:56 +0000

 1){
      throw new Exception("NormSInv: Argument out of range.");
   } else if($p < $p_low){
      $q = pow(-2 * log($p), 2);
      $NormSInv = ((((($c1 * $q + $c2) * $q + $c3) * $q + $c4) * $q + $c5) * $q + $c6) /
         (((($d1 * $q + $d2) * $q + $d3) * $q + $d4) * $q + 1);
    } else if($p <= $p_high){
      $q = $p - 0.5; $r = $q * $q;
      $NormSInv = ((((($a1 * $r + $a2) * $r + $a3) * $r + $a4) * $r + $a5) * $r + $a6) * $q /
         ((((($b1 * $r + $b2) * $r + $b3) * $r + $b4) * $r + $b5) * $r + 1);
    } else {
      $q = pow(-2 * log(1 - $p), 2);
      $NormSInv = -((((($c1 * $q + $c2) * $q + $c3) * $q + $c4) * $q + $c5) * $q + $c6) /
         (((($d1 * $q + $d2) * $q + $d3) * $q + $d4) * $q + 1);
    }
    return $NormSInv;
}

PHP Beale Cipher Decoder

Spechal — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:00:17 +0000

Treasure hunting has always been somewhat of an interest of mine and with my programming skills I decided to create a Beale cipher decoder using PHP. If you aren’t aware of the Beale cipher or the Beale story, head on over to Wikipedia and check it out. It’s pretty interesting stuff. Who knows if it has every really been found.

You can use the code below to input text and get the possible decoded instructions of where the treasure can be found!