Search
Related Links

 

 

Informative Articles

It's Not Your Fault!
IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT! Saying goodbye is easy for the traveler. I am a person who traveled so much that I had no roots except ‘within’ and I learned to be connected to ‘What IS’. In the movie Good Will Hunting there are many great insights...

Knowledge Moves
‘Knowledge comes from, and is drawn into, different organisational structures. At the same time, the notion that knowledge travels… Invites one to reconstruct communities in its wake, tracing connections after the fact.’ (Strathern 2004: 15). We...

New Hope for Alzheimer's Treatment
There is now widespread agreement among research scientists and medical professionals that Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a problem quickly growing to vast proportions. As the life expectancy of Americans continues to rise, increasing the percentage of...

Only knowledge from above...
“Only knowledge from above can Move us forward.” On Christopher Columbus’ fourth voyage to the New World in 1503, he and his crew became stranded on the island of Jamaica. Columbus’ food supply was almost gone, and his ship was too badly damaged...

Webcams: Science Fiction Communication at Home
One of the most incredible inventions I’ve ever come across is the web cam and its process of video conferencing. This is just so futuristic I can’t believe they really exist and are readily available to anyone with the Internet, speakers, and the...

 
PHP Pear Packages :: Why they are so important to php developers?


PEAR is short for "PHP Extension and Application Repository".
It is a standard and structured library of open-sourced code for PHP users, All PHP code is written in standard style
known as PCS ( PEAR Coding Standards ),it helps in maintaining the collaboration between PEAR developers. It is also helpful in quality and portability management. Using PCS, PEAR contributors can provide consistent and similar coding standard packages.

PEAR is a community-driven project. The project has been founded by Stig S. Bakken in 1999 and quite a lot of people have joined the project since then.

The code in PEAR is partitioned in "packages". Each package is a separate project with its own development team, version number, release cycle, documentation and a defined relation to other packages (including dependencies). Packages are distributed as gzipped tar files with a description file inside, and can be installed on your local system using the PEAR installer.

Nowadays it is included in the standard distribution of the PHP installation and default include_path of php.ini in set to include the files from the folder where php pear packages normally installed.

But why PEAR is so useful? PEAR has more than 330 packages ranging from HTTP authentication to XML web services and complicated math equations for engineering calculations.
Database management can be done using DB packages, and mail can be handled using mail packages.There are packages to create the forms and do their validation automatically. You can also create and validate the


CSS and HTML of your code.

There are more than 25 packages categories like Authentication, Benchmarking, Caching,Configuration, Console, Database, Date and Time, Encryption, Event, File Formats, File System, Gtk Components, HTML,HTTP, Images, Internationalization, Logging, Mail, Math, Networking,Numbers, Payment, Processing, Science,Semantic Web, Streams, Structures, System, Text, Validate, Web Services, XML.

Using pear, a less experience person can handle the any major technical requirement in their PHP programs.

But PEAR has one major issue with its documentation. Its documentation is not up to the mark and is probably the weakest part of the project. Most modules have some documentation available in the PEAR Manual but much of this is incomplete and crucially there are no links from the package directory entries to the documentation for each package. It's a major short coming because PEAR has a great deal of excellent code that many developers are completely unaware of. The documentation normally created by PHP Documentator.

Some web sites like http://www.zend.com/pear/tutorials/index.php and http://www.phpkitchen.com/index.php?/archives/668-PEAR-Tutorials.html has some good collection of PEAR tutorials.

You can visit the PEAR homepage at http://pear.php.net


About the Author

Zareef Ahmed is php developer based in india, Delhi. He is doing web development since last five-six years.
He can be contacted at zareef@zareef.net. To know more about him you can visit his home page at http://www.zareef.net

 

Science/AAAS | Scientific research, news and career information
International weekly science journal, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
www.sciencemag.org
 
Science/AAAS | Table of Contents: 1 December 2006; 314 (5804)
This Week in Science: Editor summaries of this week's papers. Science 1 December 2006: 1349. ... 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science. ...
www.sciencemag.org
 
Science.gov : FirstGov for Science - Government Science Portal
Science.gov is a gateway to government science information provided by US Government science agencies, including research and development results.
www.science.gov
 
ScienceDaily: Your source for the latest research news and science ...
ScienceDaily -- the Internet's premier online science magazine and science news web site -- brings you the latest discoveries in science, health & medicine, ...
www.sciencedaily.com
 
Science News - New York Times
Find breaking news, science news & multimedia on biology, space, the environment, health, NASA, weather, drugs, heart disease, cancer, AIDS, mental health ...
www.nytimes.com
 
Science News Online
Weekly magazine offers featured articles from the current issue along with special online-only features. Includes photo collection, archives, ...
www.sciencenews.org
 
Science in the Yahoo! Directory
Explore the fields of astronomy, biology, geology, mathematics, and physics and all of their related disciplines with resources designed for professionals, ...
dir.yahoo.com
 
Open Directory - Science
Agriculture (2454); Anomalies and Alternative Science (525); Astronomy (4208); Biology (20593); Chemistry (4852); Computer Science@ (2358) ...
dmoz.org
 
BBC - Science & Nature
The best of BBC Science and Nature, from TV and radio, to the web and beyond. Take a tour from the smallest atoms, to the largest whales and the most ...
www.bbc.co.uk
 
Science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sciences versus Science: the plural of the term is often used but is difficult to ... Science education is also a very vibrant field of study and research. ...
en.wikipedia.org
 
Popular Science
Monthly magazine about current science and technology.
www.popsci.com
 
Science/AAAS | ScienceNOW: The Latest News Headlines from the ...
AAAS web magazine. Some free sample stories, subscription required for full text.
sciencenow.sciencemag.org
 
ScienceCareers.org | Science Jobs, Funding, Meetings, and Advice ...
Searchable database of jobs, sorted by field specialty. Can post resume and curriculum vitae. Includes tips for improving the workplace for employers and ...
sciencecareers.sciencemag.org
 
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Research news, issue papers. Educational programs, science policy (US and international).
www.aaas.org
 
NASA - Science@NASA
News and features about NASA research, aimed at the general public. Includes sections on astronomy, space science, beyond rocketry, living in space, ...
science.nasa.gov
 
Science NetLinks: Resources for Teaching Science
Resources for K-12 science educators.
www.sciencenetlinks.com
 
Cool Science for Curious Kids
Fun and interactive site to help kids appreciate science. Why are snakes like lizards, and monkeys like moose? Find out here.
www.hhmi.org
 
Welcome to the Science Museum
London museum and library of science. Exhibitions cover all areas of science and technology. Includes online exhibits and a learning area.
www.sciencemuseum.org.uk
 
New Scientist - International News, Ideas, Innovation
Weekly science and technology news magazine, considered by some to be the world's best, with diverse subject matter. Articles from current issue and ...
www.newscientist.com
 
CNN.com - Science and Space
Offers news stories related environmental issues, archeology, astronomy, technology, geology and other science topics.
www.cnn.com