PHP with Apple's Developer Tools

The table below shows some of Project Builder's text navigation key bindings. These keys may not be listed under the Edit menu, but they are supported by Cocoa's NSTextView, so they are available in almost every Cocoa application. Even a text input box on a Web form displayed in OmniWeb supports emacs-style navigation keys like Ctrl-A and Ctrl-E.

The editor has a number of other noteworthy features. When you are editing a file, you get many levels of undo and redo, using the command-z and command-shift-z key combinations; it is even possible to undo changes back to a point prior to the time a file was last saved. When you need to see two files at once, command-" (command-shift-quote) will split an editor window in two, and command-' (command-quote) will later collapse the two editors back into one. To search for a string in the current editor, you can obtain a standard search-and-replace dialog box using command-f. Much more powerful, however, is the Project-wide Batch Find feature, which is available by selecting the Find tab above the editor panel or with the key combination command-shift-F. In the batch find panel you can search the entire project or even a customized subset of files for a simple text string or a complex regular expression.

As previously mentioned, one of Project Builder's best features is its integration with CVS and FileMerge. To see an example of this, open one of the files in the PEAR project, make some changes, and save them to disk. Then pull down the CVS menu and select Compare/Merge with latest revision. Project Builder will initiate a cvs diff command to compare the file to the version in the repository, and then display the differences in FileMerge. If you were authorized to commit changes to the repository, but needed to merge your changes with those of another developer, FileMerge would enable you to easily navigate through the changes using the up and down arrow keys, and then use the left and right arrow key to select one version or the other for the merged file.

What's in a Project

At this point, it's helpful to understand what Project Builder does behind the scenes. Close the PEAR window, quit Project Builder, and look in the directory where you downloaded the PEAR files. Project Builder has created one folder, called PHP-pear.pbproj, containing two files, project.pbxproj and username.pbxuser. The PHP-pear.pbproj directory is what Mac OS X refers to as a wrapper, a directory whose contents encapsulate a single document. The two pbxproj files inside it are both property lists: Unicode text files containing structured data. Many OS X property lists are XML files, but these two happen to be encoded in an older non-XML format. You can actually look inside these files using a few different tools. In the Terminal window where you originally fetched the CVS source, try this:

The TextEdit window shows the raw text of the project file (you could easily corrupt it, so be careful not to save any changes). The PropertyListEditor application allows you to navigate the tree structure of a property list or dump it into XML format. The contents of these files can be cryptic, but one thing is clear about them: the pbxproj file encodes the structure of the project itself (its files and groups ) while the pbxuser file contains your personal preferences and window coordinates. This distinction is significant if you want to share the project with other developers; you can commit the pbproj directory and pbxproj file into the CVS tree, but you should not commit the pbxuser file. When other developers retrieve the pbproj bundle from CVS and open it, Project Builder will silently create new pbxuser files for them.

Some Oddities

Project Builder was built primarily for Cocoa developers but has many features that are useful for Web developers. Using it outside its intended realm like this, though, one tends to find small items of annoyance here and there. (Some of them might be called "bugs," but then for the developers to address them might also be deemed "feature creep.") For instance, many Web projects contain plain HTML files, but when Project Builder sees a file with an .html extension it sometimes attempts to render the HTML, as it does with its Release Notes file, rather than let you edit the HTML source. However, if you create the HTML file in Project Builder itself (using File -- > New File), it seems that Project Builder will consistently open it for editing rather than rendering.

Another glitch for PHP developers concerns syntax coloring. In PHP, a string that is delimited by single quotes can contain literal double quote characters. The following is a legal line of code:

The unmatched double quote at the end of the string confuses Project Builder's syntax colorizer. You can put the colorizer back on track using a second double quote in a shell-style comment, like this:

Conclusion

Mac OS X is my environment of choice for developing PHP and Perl applications, primarily because Project Builder does a better job than any editor I know at making it easy to navigate a large collection of files. It helps me grasp the interdependencies in a big collection of source files, and I can always find the code I'm looking for quickly and easily. When running Apache and PHP on my Mac OS X machine, debugging becomes very easy. And when I decide to work on code in Java or C, I get to keep working in the same environment and take advantage of even more of Project Builder's features.

John David Duncan works as a MySQL database administrator and Unix sysadmin, and as a freelance Web developer building data-driven sites with Apache and PHP.

If you've worked with PHP in Project Builder, give us your impressions.
You must be logged in to the O'Reilly Network to post a talkback.

Showing messages 1 through 14 of 14.

How do I then create a PHP and get the files working
2003-04-28 04:39:01 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

Apologies if this is a bit of a noddy question, but how do then use PHP in projects? Do I have to use the PHP-pear project or can I create new ones? Do I have to add the files to my new PHP projects or are they now a recognised part of PB? Help much appreciated, Rob UK.

How do I then create a PHP and get the files working
2003-05-08 07:39:37 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

Don't understand your question at all but... simply do File > New File name it whatever.php and write it....
forget all that PEAR thing

pb "directories"
2002-12-03 04:09:09 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

>One example; "directories" in the project browser
> are virtual and do not generate or delete actual
> directories in your OS. This forces the need to
> to and fro between OS and PB, reupdating etc...

those aren't directories. those are groups. their purpose is to organize your source files and other project files....not manage the file system.

if you import a set of files that exist in a hierarchy, pb can optionally create groups that mimic the file system hierarchy.

why would you be creating folders so often that such a thing would be a hassle?

pb "directories"
2002-12-07 19:39:15 NickLo [Reply | View]

Yeah I knew that they weren't actual directories which is why I wrote "directories". They're akin to a project browser BUT my point was that that's fine for source that is to be compiled but PHP isn't and you therefore need to frequently deal with REAL files and directories not gouped files.

> why would you be creating folders so often that such a thing would be a hassle?

That's an odd question...I don't think I'm unique in continually refining my directory structure in my web apps. That is after all a large part of what makes a PHP web app efficient...a carefully structured directory layout.

I think you took the auto response in presuming that I simply don't understand PB which is not the case. The point is that there are more appropriate solutions...it cannot be denied that using PB for PHP is a workaround...the article itself points that out:

"Project Builder was built primarily for Cocoa developers but has many features that are useful for Web developers. Using it outside its intended realm like this, though, one tends to find small items of annoyance here and there."

Well those "small items of annoyance" build up. Look let's face it the only reason to consider PB for this type of work is erm...let's see...oh it comes free with the system...!! I count myself in that group...if there is a free, stable, usable solution built on the OS I'm using would it be smart to use it...I think it would! Sadly PB is currently not a particularly good choice. Convince me otherwise and I'll convert...simple.

Nick

PB is NOT ideal for PHP work
2002-12-02 23:36:00 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

I read this article on the Apple site and tried to work with PHP with Project Builder for a while and found it just to be a kludge. A bit like using a pair of pliers to undo a nut...doable but not ideal!

There are little irritations that become major over time... One example; "directories" in the project browser are virtual and do not generate or delete actual directories in your OS. This forces the need to to and fro between OS and PB, reupdating etc...

As a closing example I posted to the official Apple PB mailing list asking if anyone ACTUALLY used PB for PHP work and got little response. That's a small indication that it's just not the best or even a particularly good tool for the job.

I decided to use jEdit ( http:www.jedit.org ) which although a little slow at times has abilities that make up for the lack of speed. BBEdit is also certainly a better choice.

I'd very much like Apple to make some adaptions to allow PHP work in PB as it is potentially very good for the job, but for now I'd suggest using something more suited.

Nick Lo

PB is NOT ideal for PHP work
2002-12-03 00:21:58 gaspode [Reply | View]

Yes, you are right. Sometimes I wonder if O'Reilly got paid from Apple to advertize OS X (Just look at the poor Learning Cocoa-book... This article...).

I *wish* I could use PB for HTML, PHP, TeX - but you can't if you are doing serious work.

If you want a good PHP enviroment try jEdit (4.1pre6 at www.jedit.org) - it's free.

PB is NOT ideal for PHP work
2002-12-07 19:42:08 NickLo [Reply | View]

It is hard not to feel a little cynical when this article has already appeared on Apple's website a while ago and here it is again with nothing new! Plus there seems very little to support it...

jEdit is a good choice...I'm using it...just wish it was faster.

Nick

PB is NOT ideal for PHP work
2003-05-08 07:43:34 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

I use BBEdit, good colorings, cvs support, etc... and 7.0 version supports xhtml coloring.
Would be nice that BBedit's "cvs diff" command was through Apple's FileMerge (the one used by PB); it's great.

PB and CVS
2002-11-29 21:40:34 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

For some reason I have not been able to get CVS to work from within PB. I can use it fine from the command line but the CVS menu is always greyed out in PB. Any ideas?

Using 'open'
2002-11-29 09:21:56 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

The /usr/bin/open command defaults to using either a Finder creator or the file's extension (if the Creator isn't set in the desktop database) to decide which application to invoke. This can be a pain for files with extensions other than those that are in Project Builder's plist.

Fortunately, open has a -a switch that allows you to specify the application. For example:

open -a /Developer/Applications/Project\ Builder.app somefile.php

will open somefile.php in Project Builder. I do this so often that I have an alias in my .rc file:

alias openpb 'open -a /Developer/Applications/Project\ Builder.app'

One can use a similar trick for opening files in BBEdit (yes, I have an 'openbb' alias as well) or just about any other editor you want to use (so long as the editor responds to the Open AppleEvent).

Using 'open'
2002-12-04 07:20:58 charlesa1 [Reply | View]

With open(1), you don't need the full path to your application, so...

open -a Project\ Builder

.. will work just fine.

And with BBEdit, you don't need to define an alias, just install and use the bbedit(1) command-line tool provided by Bare Bones. It includes a number of helpful switches for doing things like creating or printing a file, leaving BBEdit in the background or waiting until BBEdit is done with the file (so you can almost use it as an $EDITOR replacement).

zend
2002-11-27 17:54:34 maarky [Reply | View]

I find Zend Studio quite useful as a php editor. It has autocomplete for functions and variables which is quite useful. Also, its debugging features save you from having to launch the page in a browser to see if it works. However, unlike PB it is not free.

Extensions
2002-11-27 16:16:41 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

Our company has made a number of modifications to the PB plists to add better support for some parts of PHP. I'll try to get them released and send them to the author of this piece.

Extensions
2003-03-08 08:38:03 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

Please do post these PB mods! I hacked around a bit but no luck getting line numbering or autoindent to work.

I thought I was the only one who used Project Builder for PHP. Sure the syntax coloring is a bit wacky and autoindent doesn't work in files with a .php suffix <grrr> but overall it works well for me and the CVS support is nice.

Carsten Klapp <carstenklapp@yahoo.ca>

Editing

What's in a Project

Some Oddities

Conclusion