In a previous post we saw how to monitor files changes in nodejs. This was required in a cron job to check which files were changed by the cron process. I also needed to search for files in a particular directory to check which files were newly created by the process. Although this is possible using the file-state-monitor package, I needed the ability to use glob patterns while searching.
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Fuzzy string matching in NodeJS
String matching is an integral part of any programming language. Many times, however, one requires to get a fuzzy instead of an exact match between strings. Usually in search applications the same word may be spelled differently – which if we do an exact math will return empty results. Fuzzy matching allows you to search for ‘nearby’ strings to a candidate string.
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How to access Gmail using NodeJS and the Gmail api
If you at any time need to programatically retrieve your Gmail account mails than the only proper way to do that is to use the Gmail api. The following post will show you how to access your Gmail account using the Gmail api and NodeJS. The code will handle all OAuth authentication and token processing.
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Creating custom stream filters in PHP
In this post we will see how to create a custom stream filter. Streams, first introduced in PHP 4.3, provide an abstration layer for file access. A number of different resources besides files – like network connections, compression protocols etc. can be regarded as “streams” of data which can be serially read and written to.
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Five APIs All Developers Need to Know
Every day, dozens of developer tools get released online. Some new developers opt for doing all their work manually, while others choose to explore new tools. If you fall into the second category, then you need to start using APIs. The acronym stands for
Application Programming Interface. In essence, it’s a programing language that lets one service – let’s say Google Maps for instance – communicate with another – for example, AccuWeather.
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Unpacking binary data in PHP
Working with binary files in PHP is rarely a requirement. However when needed the PHP ‘pack’ and ‘unpack’ functions can help you tremendously. To set the stage we will start with a programming problem, this will keep the discussion anchored to a relevant context. The problem is this : We want to write a function that takes a image file as an argument and tells us whether the file is a GIF image; irrelevant with whatever the extension the file may have. We are not to use any GD library functions.
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How to calculate the size of a MySQL database
Many times we need to calculate the size of a MySQL database through code for purpose like database backup or to check how fast the database is growing for a certain application. The database size can be easily ascertained using phpmyadmin or other desktop tools, but that requires you to manually launch the tool and check. Below we will see how to do the same through a query.
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How to profile and debug MySQL queries for speed
Most MySQL applications need profiling for speed enhancements at one time or other. I’ve developed several web applications in the past wherein MySQL queries were a major bottleneck in the application performance. In the past however there were no easy tools to analyse SQL queries in a running application and we programmers had to depend on some makeshift solutions to debug SQL queries. Now, however there are some nice free tools which can help you profile MySQL application queries easily.
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