Is this file the same as that file? The files may or may not be binary. We could compare the modify dates, or the sizes. But, those are not very accurate to know if a file has really changed.

Introducing MD5 Checksum. We can feed the files into Digest::MD5 in binary mode.

This is a great way to do Incremental Backups.

This is also an easy way to verify checksums when downloading files from the internet which list their MD5 Checksums.

You'll need the Digest::MD5 Perl Module.

This function calculates how many lines will text occupy.
Example (simple):


$string = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Phasellus tincidunt posuere dolor";

$num_lines = how_many_lines(10, $string);

It accepts a third, optional, parameter $options, that allows you to change behaviour. $options should be array. Following configuration options are available:

'white_spaces' - default: array(' ', "\t") - array of chars, that should be treated as whitespace.

'new_lines' - default: array("\r\n", "\n") - array of strings, that should be treated as newlines. For example, for HTML you can set 'new_lines' => array('');

'force_line_breaks' - default: true - force wrapping, when the token is longer than width, or not. If set to false, and token cannot be fitted into $width, function will return false;

'callback' - default: null - callback function for determining character width. Must accept at least one parameter - $char

'callback_params' - default: array() - optional additional callback parameters

'char_widths' - default: null - associative array in a form $char => $width, which contains char width. If $char is not found in the array, it's width is defaulted to 0.

Copies files from nested folders into one source, flat directory.

Deletes all files of a certain extention from a folder.

Move a file quickly in java.

in the normal GZIPOutputStream you can not et the compression level. I came across this little script tonight that allows you to set the compression level for GZIPOutputStream.

This code, working with MovableType, creates a tag cloud of tags entered into the keyword field of a blog entry. You can see the results and read my write-up which explains some other things that help with MovableType and tag clouds. I got this code from Al-Muhajabah and made a few minor tweaks. Put the PHP snippet below inside a MT template that creates a php page.

This multiple-use PHP script will randomly generate content based on a randomly generated number.

This is a simple PHP script that will show whether a certain port/socket of a certain computer is currently open/active.

Copy a file to a new location, optionally marking the file as a temporary file (to be deleted on application exit).

Note there are issues for temporary files - not all the parent directories that might be created are guaranteed to be deleted - only the immediate parent directory will be deleted on exit if created. Other higher-level directories will not be deleted, even if the file is marked as temporary.