1.) Install your Symfony app as well as the Sphinx daemon
2.) Configure your Sphinx with proper indizes and start the daemon
3.) create a mySphinxSearch.class.php in your /lib directory
4.) save the PHP sphinx api providey by Sphinx in your /lib directory
5.) create a search function inside the SphinxSearchIndex class in mySphinxSearch.class.php
6.) fill the function with the following code

15 public static function search($query)
16 {
17 $cl = new SphinxClient();
18 $cl->SetServer('127.0.0.1', 3312);
19 $cl->SetMatchMode(SPH_MATCH_EXTENDED);
20
21 // Set Weights (title, description, tags)
22 $cl->SetWeights(array(100,50,100));
23
29 $result = $cl->Query($query, 'document
document_delta document_fulltext
document_fulltext_delta');
30
31 // Check if array key exists (search found
documents) or otherwise return an empty
array
32 if(isset($result['matches']))
33 {
34 return $result['matches'];
35 }
36 else
37 {
38 return array();
39 }
40 }


7. build a function to update the index

145 /**
146 * Launch sphinx indexer to build a new
index
147 *
148 * @return void
149 */
150 public static function reIndex(
$full_rebuild=false,
$debug = false)
151 {
152 // Configuration of sphinx
153 $configDir = sfConfig::get
('sf_config_dir');
154
155 if( $full_rebuild )
156 {
157 $indexes = '--all';
158 }
159 else
160 {
161 $indexes = 'document_delta
document_fulltext_delta';
162 }
165
166 $out = shell_exec("indexer --config
$configDir/sphinx.conf --rotate
$indexes");
167
168 // Show output in debug mode
169 sfContext::getInstance()->getLogger()
->debug("Command execution
result: \n" . $out);
170 if ($debug) echo $out;
171
172 return TRUE;
173 }


8.) in your modules action set


$hits = SphinxSearchIndex::search
($this->query);

where $query is the string to search for.

if you got any questions regarding some values used in here, just leave a comment!

Furthermore I’m thinking about a way, where I can use Django or Symfony to start replacing functions in our current nasty-code-wasted yoosic-app while accessing the current yoosic database.

The only possibility I see is using Symfony by remodelling the current MyISAM-DB-Structur in the schema.yml and the generating the model. Afterwards I will be able to create Ajax-Views, which I can access from yoosic to have it replacing current modules…

Do you see a way using Django? I really would like to prefer this!

1. 1. Install Heartsome XLIFF Translator
2. 2. Modify language codes (Options->Language Codes). e.g. from de-De to de_De and en-GB to en_GB by replacing the dash by a underscore.
3. 3. Open the xml-file with the File->Open File Menue item and select the language de_De
4. 4. Save the file as FILENAME.en.xml (File->Save As)
5. 5. Start translating the strings by editing the German strings in the left field and replacing them.
6. 6. Finally save the file again.
7. 7. Import the file into you symfony project

[Update] I missed something. You have to have to change the language code of the English file in the menue. IMPORTANT!


$HTTP["host"] == "###TypeYourUrlHere###" {
var.site-root = "/var/www/###TypeYourUrlHere###/web/"
accesslog.filename = var.site-root + "../log/access.log"
alias.url = (
"/" => var.site-root,
)
# from: http://trac.symfony-project.com/wiki/lighttpd
url.rewrite-once = (
"^/(.*\..+(?!html))$" => "$0",
"^/(.*)\.(.*)" => "$0",
"^/([^.]+)$" => "/index.php/$1",
"^/$" => "/index.php"
)
# Handling dynamic content
$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/(?!js|css|images)" {
proxy-core.rewrite-request = (
"_pathinfo" => ( "^(/.*)" => "/$1" ),
"_scriptname" => ( "^/(.*)" => "/$1" )
)
}
# somthing is wrong here. this essential to get
# ajax calls /like/this/url.html working
# this is a really dirty hack
server.error-handler-404 = "index.php",
$HTTP["url"] =~ "backend\.php" {
server.error-handler-404 = "backend.php",
}
}


The result: with using memcached the page load time went down from 1-3 second to 50-100ms depending if you do a complete reload (measured on our machines).

Though I need to say that setting up Lighttpd with multiple domains, python and php5 is a true mess! Especially when you do have readable urls…

in propel.ini insert the following

propel.database.creole.url = mysql://USER:PASS@localhost/DATABASE
propel.database.url = mysql://USER:PASS@localhost/DATABASE
propel.builder.peer.class = plugins.sfPropel13Plugin.lib.propel.builder.SfPeerBuilder
propel.builder.object.class = plugins.sfPropel13Plugin.lib.propel.builder.SfObjectBuilder


Out of our labs, this minimal prototype of
something arose today: bligg

It’s just about some silly blog entries from all over the world: linked, listed, searchable… that’s it.

Development time: connecting to the source: 5h, integration in the web frontend: 1,5h.

The source? Hm, ähm, good old Technorati.

One of our current jobs this week is building a prototype for a new kind of webbased social network. Our customer intends to have a very small but working prototpe of his future web application to gain first experiences during a closed beta. Furthermore he aims to demonstrate this prototype and the user feedback to potential investors.

The prototype will be developed by two developers, getting the whole thing done in as much as 5 days. The current state after day 2: main functionality is done except search and internal messaging system. And lastly the nice layout is missing…

[Update 17:49] Search is done too.

1) Enable APC

To enable the ByteCache – System called APC just install it using PECL after you intalled apache2-dev and php5-dev

pecl install apc.

This will cache all your php-files as precompiled versions thus avoiding Apache to start the PHP-Process again and again and reinterpreting the PHP-Code. Take care that you added the “extension = apc.so” line to your php.ini and that you resolve all dependencies for the installed packages.

2. Use fragment caching

If your symfony application is well build, you probably are using lot of components, partials and actions for performing various tasks. If you did this carefully you can enable the Symfony integrated fragment cache for each of this parts defining the lifetime of the cached files. This will help you saving tons of SQL queries and furthermore will provide the Server with plain HTML-code, which is very easy to send to the user. To enable the cache you might go through all your modules, actions and components and define the cache setup for them.

Again, the architecture of your software is very important to profit of fragment caching, eventually your might consider some refactoring, because fragement caching is very very powerfull – you can save up to 90% of your heaviest DB-queries.

—-

If you also think about using Lighttpd - read about it carefully. This server is best for static files. Don’t use it for PHP.