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Month: May 2015

Implement Transparent File Caching for functions in PHP

Posted on by gschoppe

Sometimes a script needs to call a function that either uses a large amount of system resources, or that performs external calls to servers or APIs that place limits on requests. Often, however, the data returned by these functions isn’t highly volatile, and can be expected to remain the same for subsequent calls.

In these cases, it is necessary to implement a form of cache, to store the results of running the function once, and use the same results on subsequent calls (clearing the cache regularly, to prevent buildup).

Caching to disk is fairly easy to implement in PHP, but it is nice to have a prebuilt, general purpose solution that can be dropped in to any project.
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Sort by Last Name First in PHP

Posted on by gschoppe

This is less of a post, and more of a useful snippet. I’ve seen many posts online about sorting an array of names by surname, and they’ve all failed to be complete. Here is my addition to the pile. Keep in mind that it has known issues with compound last names that contain a space, like “Von Zinger”, “Mac Innis”, or “Di Vece”. However, it is a more robust solution than many others online today.

Create “Archive-Only” Custom Post Types in WordPress, and make “team” pages simple

Posted on by gschoppe

One of the more complicated things to handle in wordpress is creating a “team” page that is attractive and easy to maintain.  Many designers use pre-packaged plugins that remove a level of control, or create these pages as flat pages with complicated custom layouts (sometimes with the assistance of Visual Composer or another complicated shortcode library).

The same issue tends to carry over to other ‘aggregate’ pages like “board of directors” or “testimonials”.  However, it’s actually fairly simple to implement these pages as a Custom Post Type, giving content-editors a simple post interface to add and delete team members, and making front-end layout a simple job for a custom template and some css.
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