I recently received a question about how to use DB2 with Zend Framework on IBM i. Thomas wrote:

I would like to start with Zend Framework on i5 [IBM i] with Zend Server and ZF’s DB2 database adapter. I got this error message:
Qualified object name SYSCOLUMNS not valid. SQLCODE=-5016

I told Thomas about an improved DB2 adapter, optimized for IBM i, that I’d created in cooperation with Zend. Its usage is explained in my presentation, “From Zero to ZF,” on my Presentations page: http://www.alanseiden.com/presentations/.

Thomas wrote back to say this adapter worked perfectly for him, eliminating the error and improving performance. I believe this DB2 adapter (or something similar) will eventually be included with Zend Framework 2.0, but until then, it works well as a custom adapter.

Next week I’ll be in Framingham to present at the Northeast System i Users Groups Conference (NEUGC). In early May,  it’s Minneapolis for the COMMON 2011 annual meeting. Here are the dates and places of these great conferences:

NEUGC: April 11-13, 2011, in Framingham, Mass.
COMMON: May 1-4, 2011, in Minneapolis, Minn.

At each conference I’ll be presenting 6 talks:

• 4 about PHP on IBM i: web services, batch jobs, Zend Framework, and my research into best practices for db2
• one about making web development easier with free tools that run in a web browser (a fun one)
• one non-technical talk about how to stay healthy despite years of professional computer use (fun and interactive)

Both conferences have an exciting lineup of speakers and topics. I plan to learn a lot and meet many great people. If you are there, please say hello.

On March 9, 2011, I’ll present a free webinar about how to create a Zend Framework project on IBM i. The webinar is at 9am PST, 12pm EST. Sign up here: http://www.zend.com/en/company/news/event/790_webinar-your-first-zend-framework-project-on-ibm-i

Here’s the complete list of my upcoming talks.

A list of Zend Framework user groups is now available online: http://framework.zend.com/community/groups. I’m proud to say the list includes my own New York City area Zend Framework Meetup Group, co-founded by Ed Kietlinski and me in 2009, and affiliated with NY-PHP.

I always learn something from in-person user group meetings, even if I’m the one presenting. I go home with a lot to think about and a good feeling about my profession in technology.

The 2010 “Zend/PHP Conference” welcomed the full range of the PHP community: open source contributors, small businesses, practitioners of diverse technologies and platforms, including Microsoft Windows, Linux, and IBM i, and the largest names in technology and business: Adobe, GE, the New York Stock Exchange. All these contributed energy and momentum to ZendCon.

I presented two talks (slides: http://alanseiden.com/presentations) and attended many more (slides: http://joind.in/event/ZendCon2010), given by some of the top names in IBM i and PHP. Beyond the great value of scheduled sessions, though, ZendCon offered even more.

As noted by Zend’s co-founder Andi Gutmans in his opening address, ZendCon’s value comes not only from scheduled sessions but from those unscheduled conversations in the hallway, at meals, and at evening networking events. ZendCon is about sharing knowledge, solving problems, and building relationships.

Personal highlights:

• Alison Butterill’s presentation about IBM’s strong commitment to PHP
• Susan Gantner’s sessions about interweaving RPG, PHP, and MySQL’s DB2 Storage Engine
• Meeting Sam Pinkhasov from Zend’s R&D lab. He has such great knowledge that one time I followed him all around the conference center and into the elevator, peppering him with questions, before I finally let him go on the 5th floor.
• The speaker’s reception, IBM i reception, and Disney-sponsored reception
• Helping two people with their Apache configurations on IBM i. I continued to work on one of their configurations for 15 minutes after the lights were turned out, finding the command keys by feel alone. (Does that make me a geek?)
• The Zend Framework roundtable where I got to ask the developers my burning questions.

I want to thank my employer, Strategic Business Systems, Inc., for allowing me to come and speak at ZendCon.

Below are my photos from the conference. I hope to return to ZendCon next year and to see many of you there!

P.S. For those of you in the New York area, come see me co-lead a roundtable recap of the conference at NY-PHP on November 23, 2010.

Andi Gutmans giving his opening keynote

Ray Taylor and I chatting before my web services talk

elePHPant with a fan

IBM i networking event

Ryan Watkins and Alison Butterill at the IBM booth

"Leverage the power of IBM i" Zend PHP button

Susan Gantner speaking about RPG, PHP, and MySQL

Infoworld has awarded Zend Framework a “Bossie,” naming ZF one of the top 10 open source application development tools of 2010.

Infoworld says:

The Zend Framework, from the creators of the PHP runtime, combines a business-friendly open source license with a set of high-quality, object-oriented component libraries for building serious Web applications. The loosely coupled components extend from authentication and session management to Web services and APIs to the popular Web 2.0 sites, and they include everything in between. You’ll also find components for the MVC (model-view-controller) design pattern and “RAD” tools to generate your project structure and populate it with MVC components, but you’re never locked in. You can take it just as much as you need and leave the rest.

I agree that ZF’s “use at will” architecture provides major benefits. Last week I helped a client set up a SOAP client and server using Zend_Soap_Client and Zend_Soap_Server, all from within a normal PHP script. While I normally do use ZF’s full MVC architecture, it’s not required.

Congratulations to Zend Framework!

Please join me for my IBM i-focused PHP talks this fall. I’ll present these topics:

• web services with PHP and Zend Framework
• batch and command-line tasks with PHP
• RPG-based 5250 applications as the basis for new web applications

…all focused on PHP on IBM i!

Here are the dates, locations and web sites with more information:

Sept 28: Vermont Midrange Users Group (VTMUG) education day, South Burlington, Vermont

Oct. 3-6: COMMON Fall Conference, San Antonio, Texas

Oct. 26: OMNI Users Group education day, Chicago suburbs

Nov. 1-4: Zend/PHP Conference (ZendCon 2010), Santa Clara, California

I look forward to meeting many of you at these great conferences and education days.

Zend Framework’s database components can build and run queries without the developer’s having to touch the underlying SQL. Sometimes, though, developers need the SQL for diagnosing problems or to look for efficiencies. That SQL can be accessed with a choice of two main techniques:

getQuery()

getQuery() is a method of Zend_Db_Profiler and seems, along with getLastQueryProfile(), to be the standard advice for retrieving SQL of a recent query:

query = $profiler->getLastQueryProfile();
echo $query->getQuery();

Yes, getQuery() works, but what if I’m not using the profiler, or I need to retrieve SQL before a query has run?

__toString()

The “magic method” __toString() is simple and can be used either before or after the query is run. When applied to a Zend_Db_Select object, it generates an SQL string.

From the Zend_Db_Select documentation:

$select = $db->select()->from('products');
$sql = $select->__toString();
echo "$sql\n";

// The output is the string:
// SELECT * FROM "products"

__toString() is simple to use, yet is often forgotten when discussing how to retrieve SQL from Zend_Db_Select. I recommend it.

Does your site run as quickly as it could? It’s worth your time to find out. Faster web sites sell more products, improve user satisfaction, and even rank higher in Google searches.

Note: This tip was written for IBM i but could be adapted for other platforms as well.

Benefits of Zend Server

If you have upgraded from Zend Core to Zend Server for IBM i, you have already received several performance improvements: bytecode acceleration (Zend Optimizer+), the elimination of Zend Core’s proxy web server, and configurable Data Caching. If you upgraded from Community Edition (CE) to full Zend Server, you also get monitoring, Page Caching, and Job Queue functionality.

Compression adds even more speed

IBM’s Apache web server provides an additional way to speed up your Zend Server for IBM i pages. You can compress PHP output, javascript, style sheets, and other text-based content. The compressed output will automatically be decompressed and interpreted properly by all modern web browsers. My tests show a speed improvement of 10-50% from this easy technique.

How to enable compression in 3 steps

1. Edit ZENDSVR’s Apache configuration file, located at /www/zendsvr/conf/httpd.conf. This is a simple text file, so you may choose from several editors: IBM’s HTTP Server Admin GUI at port 2001 (if *ADMIN is started), the WRKLNK/EDTF command, or your favorite text editor (I use EditPad Pro).

2. Add the following two directives to the httpd.conf’s main section:

# Load IBM i's module that performs compression
LoadModule deflate_module /QSYS.LIB/QHTTPSVR.LIB/QZSRCORE.SRVPGM

# Specify what to compress (example: php, json, css, javascript, static html)
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-httpd-php application/json text/css
application/x-javascript application/javascript text/html

3. Restart Zend Server using the handy button or STRTCPSVR SERVER(*HTTP) RESTART(*HTTP) HTTPSVR(ZENDSVR)

Measure the improvement

I ran before-and-after tests using a sample script included with Zend Server for IBM i: http://your-server:10088/Samples/SQL_access/DB2_SQL_example.php.

Before compression: 31kb, loaded in 250ms (milliseconds). See the Firebug report below (Firebug is an optional add-on for Firefox and is not required.)

Without compression, this page was 31kb and loaded in 250ms

After compression: 4.4kb; loaded in 109ms. That’s only 14% of the size and 50% of the time! See the screen shot below.

after compression: only 4.4kb and loaded in 109ms

I highly recommend that you give output compression a try. Your Zend Server for IBM i pages will fly!

For more information on browser output compression, see: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_deflate.html

Join me at at Long Island PHP on June 7, 2010, where I’ll present a case study showing how I integrated Windows-based data into an IBM i-based application using SOAP with Zend Framework.

The principles are the same no matter what type of servers you use.

Event details: http://www.listnet.org/eventDetails.cfm?eventID=1263

There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion.

Hope to see you there!

P.S. To see the slides from my past presentations, go to  http://www.alanseiden.com/presentations/.