Quickly importing data from CSV file into PHP applications

Alexander Skakunov

In this article you may learn how to quickly import data from CSV files into your application with help of PHP. It also covers a tool that provides a Web based user interface for importing CSV data into a MySQL database table with support for mapping CSV columns into arbitrary MySQL database table columns.
Did you know there are data exchange formats besides XML? If the data to exchange is flat, i.e. is not in an hierarchical structure, CSV (comma separated values) format is a good candidate format to import or your export your application data.

New approach to generate PDF using PHP with Zend Framework

Jonathan Maron

LiveDocx is a Zend Framework package that implements a new approach to generate PDF documents in PHP. It combines structured data passed by a PHP script with a template created in a word processor. It is the same concept as mail merge. The resulting document can be saved as a PDF, as well in other formats such as DOCX, DOC or RTF file.



Generating PDF using PHP
Generating ready to print and well formatted PDF documents with PHP is not an easy task.cThere are two usual approaches to generate PDF using PHP. Both get the job done given enough time and patience, but still leave a lot to be desired.

PHP security exploit with GIF images

Manuel Lemos

I usually do not write in this blog about general PHP issues unless it is somehow related with the PHPClasses site.

However, this time I feel that I should use the fact that new blog posts here gets great exposure, as they are notified by e-mail to over 220,000 PHP developers. So I am writing this because it is very important to spread the word about this PHP security exploits that can used to abuse from sites written by many developers that are not well aware of security issues.

Despite in the PHPClasses site there is a great concern about security, I am not really a security expert. More than anything, I am just passing the word.