Category: PHP

Easy to miss issue with built-in PHP server – No Apache, no .htaccess.

I had an issue where I could not get the .htaccess of a PHP project I had to work.
I couldn’t understand why simple .htaccess code was not working.
After some wasted time, the obvious came to light, I was testing the project through scripts that started the built-in PHP server. Does the PHP server handle .htaccess files? A quick Bard AI request reveals the issue,

Does the in built PHP server handle .htaccess files?

No, the built-in PHP server does not handle .htaccess files. .htaccess files are specific to the Apache web server, and the built-in PHP server is not an Apache web server.

If you need to use .htaccess files, you will need to use a real web server, such as Apache or Nginx.

There are a few workarounds for using .htaccess files with the built-in PHP server. One workaround is to create a PHP script that parses the .htaccess file and handles all routing. Another workaround is to use a real web server to serve the .htaccess file, and then use the built-in PHP server to serve the rest of your website.

However, it is generally not recommended to use the built-in PHP server in production. It is intended for development and testing purposes only.

There you go. The built-in PHP server is not an Apache web server. “use a real web server, such as Apache or Nginx.” : )

How to parse the datetime format used on lines in phperror.log?

The following was returned using Bard AI. It provided a good response, so I am sharing below:

Prompt used: “For the $format argument used in DateTime::createFromFormat of PHP, what format should I use to parse “10-Sep-2023 00:13:12 UTC”?”.

The following format can be used to parse the string 10-Sep-2023 00:13:12 UTC using the DateTime::createFromFormat function in PHP:

$format = 'd-M-Y H:i:s T';

This format specifies the following:

  • d: The day of the month, as a two-digit number.
  • M: The month, as a three-letter abbreviation.
  • Y: The year, as a four-digit number.
  • H: The hour, as a two-digit number in 24-hour format.
  • i: The minute, as a two-digit number.
  • s: The second, as a two-digit number.
  • T: The time zone, as a single-letter abbreviation.

In this case, the time zone is UTC, which is the Coordinated Universal Time.

To parse the string 10-Sep-2023 00:13:12 UTC, we can use the following code:

PHP
$dateTime = DateTime::createFromFormat($format, '10-Sep-2023 00:13:12 UTC');
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This will create a DateTime object representing the specified date and time in UTC.

We can then use the DateTime object to get the individual components of the date and time, or to perform other operations, such as formatting the date and time in a different format.