Sample Apple Push Notification PHP Script

This is an old script that I used to use for sending notifications. I don’t remember the source, on the other hand, it has been modified a couple of times already.

Even though I could manage to send notifications with this script, the Apple server was rejecting the connection after the amount reaches more than 50. It was usually getting cut off around 70. So it needs to get some management for not sending in a loop, like threading or whatever.

<?php
 
// set time limit to zero in order to avoid timeout
set_time_limit(0);
 
// charset header for output
header('content-type: text/html; charset: utf-8');
 
// this is the pass phrase you defined when creating the key
$passphrase = 'my_secret_pass';
 
// you can post a variable to this string or edit the message here
if (!isset($_POST['msg'])) {
$_POST['msg'] = "Notification message here!";
}
 
// tr_to_utf function needed to fix the Turkish characters
$message = tr_to_utf($_POST['msg']);
 
// load your device ids to an array
$deviceIds = array(
'lh142lk3h1o2141p2y412d3yp1234y1p4y1d3j4u12p43131p4y1d3j4u12p4313',
'y1p4y1d3j4u12p43131p4y1d3j4u12p4313lh142lk3h1o2141p2y412d3yp1234'
);
 
// this is where you can customize your notification
$payload = '{"aps":{"alert":"' . $message . '","sound":"default"}}';
 
$result = 'Start' . '<br />';
 
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// start to create connection
$ctx = stream_context_create();
stream_context_set_option($ctx, 'ssl', 'local_cert', 'MyAppGenerated.pem');
stream_context_set_option($ctx, 'ssl', 'passphrase', $passphrase);
 
echo count($deviceIds) . ' devices will receive notifications.<br />';
 
foreach ($deviceIds as $item) {
    // wait for some time
    sleep(1);
     
    // Open a connection to the APNS server
    $fp = stream_socket_client('ssl://gateway.push.apple.com:2195', $err, $errstr, 60, STREAM_CLIENT_CONNECT | STREAM_CLIENT_PERSISTENT, $ctx);
 
    if (!$fp) {
        exit("Failed to connect: $err $errstr" . '<br />');
    } else {
        echo 'Apple service is online. ' . '<br />';
    }
 
    // Build the binary notification
    $msg = chr(0) . pack('n', 32) . pack('H*', $item) . pack('n', strlen($payload)) . $payload;
     
    // Send it to the server
    $result = fwrite($fp, $msg, strlen($msg));
     
    if (!$result) {
        echo 'Undelivered message count: ' . $item . '<br />';
    } else {
        echo 'Delivered message count: ' . $item . '<br />';
    }
 
    if ($fp) {
        fclose($fp);
        echo 'The connection has been closed by the client' . '<br />';
    }
}
 
echo count($deviceIds) . ' devices have received notifications.<br />';
 
// function for fixing Turkish characters
function tr_to_utf($text) {
    $text = trim($text);
    $search = array('Ü', 'Þ', 'Ð', 'Ç', 'Ý', 'Ö', 'ü', 'þ', 'ð', 'ç', 'ý', 'ö');
    $replace = array('Ãœ', 'Åž', '&#286;ž', 'Ç', 'Ä°', 'Ö', 'ü', 'ÅŸ', 'ÄŸ', 'ç', 'ı', 'ö');
    $new_text = str_replace($search, $replace, $text);
    return $new_text;
}
 
// set time limit back to a normal value
set_time_limit(30);

html2canvas- Take Screenshot of Web Page and Save It to Server (JavaScript and PHP)

FeedBack is important. Usually, end-users struggle to clarify their problems. And you might be unreachable for a phone call or remote connection.

That causes a huge need of visualization. First solution that appears in mind is to capture the current screen of user.

However, when I tried to implement that, it wasn’t so easy as I expected. Some old ways offer ActiveX but it seems too outdated. Since there’s a bridge needed between client side and server, JS libraries are the best way.

There’s a great library, html2canvas. It is told to be reverse-engineered version of Google Plus’ way of taking screenshots.

When I first discovered this library, it took me a while to use for simplest implementation. I just wanted to visualize a div element. However, there was no single page to tell the whole path to follow, thus I had to combine various sources.

Here’s how you can easily use for taking a screenshot of a div:

1- Import libraries
There are 3 libraries to import:

  • jquery.js
  • html2canvas.js
  • jquery.plugin.html2canvas.js

You can download html2canvas and html2canvas jQuery plugin from this link.
Note: The source link contains html2canvas v0.40. I recommend you to check for a newer version and use it instead from official html2canvas site.

I have used jquery.min.js v1.7.1 but you can try other versions. For this jQuery library, use this link.
Here’s first lines of code:

<script type="text/javascript" src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/html2canvas.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.plugin.html2canvas.js"></script>

2- Create your div
In my code, I used html2canvas for a div. You can use the whole body tag instead, it’s up to you.
Attach a div element to the page with a certain id:

<div id="target">
<!-- Render your page inside of this div. -->
</div>

3- Create a button and a hidden form
This part is important. In order to save the image to server, we need to pass captured image data with a form field.
In 4th step, you’ll see JavaScript code that writes the image data to hidden field and posts the form.

<input type="submit" value="Take Screenshot Of Div" onclick="capture();" />
<form method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data" action="save.php" id="myForm">
    <input type="hidden" name="img_val" id="img_val" value="" />
</form>

4- JavaScript Code

function capture() {
    $('#target').html2canvas({
        onrendered: function (canvas) {
            //Set hidden field's value to image data (base-64 string)
            $('#img_val').val(canvas.toDataURL("image/png"));
            //Submit the form manually
            document.getElementById("myForm").submit();
        }
    });
}

5- Use the posted values
Here I used a form to post the value. You can use Ajax calls or whatever. I have a PHP file, save.php. In this file, we will both show the picture and save it to the server.

//save.php code
 
//Show the image
echo '<img src="'.$_POST['img_val'].'" />';
 
//Get the base-64 string from data
$filteredData=substr($_POST['img_val'], strpos($_POST['img_val'], ",")+1);
 
//Decode the string
$unencodedData=base64_decode($filteredData);
 
//Save the image
file_put_contents('img.png', $unencodedData);

6- Enjoy your day
So that’s pretty much it. You can download the codes from Github repository page.

7- Notes

* This tutorial uses html2canvas v0.4.0 – 30.1.2013. It has a new release, v0.4.1 – 7.9.2013, can be downloaded from here. Though avaliability of newer versions haven’t been tested with the code above.

* Some people have declared that they had issues with checkbox/radiobutton states on the captured image. Stu has shared his code to capture these elements with their states. I haven’t tried by myself but people who face problem about this may get some opinion from his comment.

PHP Coding Standards (pear.php.net)

https://pear.php.net/manual/en/standards.php

52543667

Always use to delimit PHP code, not the <? ?> shorthand.

<?php ?>

Control statements should have one space between the control keyword and opening parenthesis, to distinguish them from function calls.

if (true) {
   switch (condition) {
      case 1:
         action1;
         break;
      case 2:
         action2;
         break;
   }
}

You are strongly encouraged to always use curly braces even in situations where they are technically optional.

if (true) {
   // single line stuff
}

Split long if statements onto several lines keeping the question mark and the colon at the front.

if (($condition1 || $condition2)
    && $condition3 && $condition4
   ) {
   //code here
}

There should be one space on either side of an equals sign used to assign the return value of a function to a variable

$long_variable = foo($baz);

The CS require lines to have a maximum length of 80 chars. It is allowed to split parameters in function calls onto several lines.

$this->someObject->subObject->callThisFunctionWithALongName(
   $parameterOne, $parameterTwo, $aVeryLongParameterThree
);

The same applies not only for parameter variables, but also for nested function calls and for arrays.

someFunction(
   array(
      "foo" => "bar"
   )
);

To support readability, the equal signs may be aligned in block-related assignments:

$short     = foo($bar);
$thelonger = foo($baz);
52543649

Class and function declarations have their opening brace on a new line:

class Foo_Bar
{
}
function doThing()
{
}

Function declarations follow the “K&R style” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indent_style#K.26R_style

Arguments with default values go at the end of the argument list.

function doAnotherThing($id = 0, $doAgain = false)
{
}

include_once and require_once are statements, not functions. Parentheses should not surround the subject filename.

include_once "/file.php";

Generate DateTime Value in PHP for Using in MySQL Command

When we work with date and/or time values in MySQL, it’s always easy to use built-in MySQL functions such as NOW(), DATE_ADD(), TIMESTAMP() etc… Now imagine you have to pass date/time values to MySQL from PHP variables. First time I tried that, it didn’t work out so easy for me.

Yes, if you simply take one column value and use it again, you have no problem. But here’s an example that you take date and time from MySQL column, add 1 seconds to that value and use it in query again:

//Here's just stuff in order to get a datetime value from MySQL DB.
$query = "SELECT TOP 1 `date` FROM `table`";
$result = mysql_query($query, $db_link);
$date_time_val = "";
if ($result) {
    while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
        //Here we get the value.
        $date_time_val = $row["date"];
    }
}
 
//Now we add one second to this value and use it again.
//First, use it for generating a DateTime variable from PHP library.
$time = new DateTime($date_time_val);
//If you need current time in PHP, you can use this:
//$time = new DateTime(date("Y-m-d H:i:s"));
 
//Add one second,
$time->modify("+1 seconds");
 
//You can not use it as it is
//You need to convert to a string in MySQL datetime format.
$time_string = $time->format("Y-m-d H:i:s");
 
//Now you're free to use in your query
$query_new = "SELECT * FROM `table` WHERE `date` = '".$time_string."' ";