5 extremely powerful PHP tools
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PHP is the most powerful scripting language that is being used today. The performing websites like Facebook, wordpress, Digg and a lot more use PHP. There can be no greater reason why PHP has now become the ultimate choice of programmers worldwide.
Here are 5 most important tools that can help you improve the quality of scripting.
1. Tool for documentation
phpDocumentor
This is a powerful documentation tool for your PHP code. It is also known as phpdoc and phpdocu. The phpDocumentor tool offers a variety of incredible features. Here are a few features you would like to know about.
- Ability to output HTML and PDF
- Fully customizable according to users’ needs
- Sample PHP files can be directly placed in documentation
- Ability to link API documentation and specific external files
- Source codes can be highlighted and commented for further verification
- Easy to maintain, incredibly fast and highly secure
2. Tools for testing
SimpleTest
SimpleTest one of the testing tools for PHP. It is used for unit-testing. The best part of SimpleTest is that it is written in PHP language itself and the programmer does not need to learn any other language. Hence it is easier for the developer to test any part of the code right away.
Selenium
Selenium is one of the most used plugin. This test tool allows the user to write web application test cases automatically. The most advantageous part of this tool is that it can be integrated with any browser that has JavaScript enabled. The automated test cases can be run within the browser itself.
3. Tool for image manipulation and graphs
pChart - a PHP class to build charts
pChart is a PHP class-oriented framework designed to create aliased charts. In today’s world, every tool has a cost that has to be paid. This is one tool that comes free and still performs just like any other highly paid tool.
With every new release, exciting features are being added to pChart. The tool is updated every other week.
Version 1.27c: the team has introduced support for scatter lines and plot for easy reference.
Version 1.27b: the different axis on the graph can be customized and captions can be added to each data. The automatic scaling algorithm has been introduced which helps in easy readability.
Version 1.27: customizable backgrounds have been added along with image map creation and transparent text. The data can be created with graphics oh high quality now.
4. PHP Code Beautifier
phpCodeBeautifier is another tool that is widely used by programmers across the globe. It helps you reformat different styles of code into your own style. This saves a lot of time and it is also easy to maintain.
- A Graphic User Interface enables the programmer to process files visually.
- A command-line version can be integrated with other tools.
5. Security Tool
Automatic scans for PHP4 source code can be performed by Pixy, a Java oriented security scanner. It is also meant for the detection of XSS and SQL injection vulnerabilities. Earlier, these errors only had to be corrected manually which consumed a lot of time. 100% error free code was an impossible task. Pixy takes a PHP program as an input and generates a report that shows a list of vulnerable points in the source code. This way, it is easier for the programmer to debug the code.
There also very reliable debugging tools like Webgrind, Xdebug, Gubed PHP Debugger and PHP Debug that can be used with PHP.
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