I had a need to use xpath like paths to fetch values from json strings. Searched and couldn’t find anything decent that suited my requirement. so ended up writing a quick and dirty implementation of my own jpath. here’s the php code.

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function get_jpath($jpath, $json) {
	$json_object = json_decode($json);
	$pos_of_hash = strpos($jpath, "#");
	if($pos_of_hash!==false) {
		// the jpath would return a list
		$part_till_hash = substr($jpath, 0, $pos_of_hash);
		$part_after_hash = substr($jpath, $pos_of_hash+1, strlen($jpath) - $pos_of_hash + 1);
		$count=get_count_jpath($part_till_hash,$json);
		$list = array();
                for($i=0;$i< $count;$i++) {
				$returned_value = get_jpath($part_till_hash.$i.$part_after_hash, $json);
				if(is_array($returned_value)) {
					foreach ($returned_value as $item) {
						$list[] = $item;
					}
				} else {
					$list[] = $returned_value;
				}
		}
		return $list;
	} else {
		// the jpath would return a single value / json object
		$nodes = explode(".", $jpath);
		$objString = '$json_object';
		foreach($nodes as $node) {
			$pos_of_index_open = strpos($node,"[");
			if($pos_of_index_open > 0) {
				$pos_of_index_close = strpos($node,"]");
				$node_name = substr($node, 0, $pos_of_index_open);
				$node_index = substr($node, $pos_of_index_open, $pos_of_index_close - $pos_of_index_open + 1);
				$objString.='->{\''.$node_name.'\'}'.$node_index;
			} else {
				$objString.='->{\''.$node.'\'}';
			}
		}
		eval('$value = '.$objString.';');
		return($value);
	}
}
 
function get_count_jpath($jpath, $json) {
	$json_object = json_decode($json);
	$nodes = explode(".", $jpath);
	$objString = '$json_object';
	foreach($nodes as $node) {
		$pos_of_index_open = strpos($node,"[");
		if($pos_of_index_open!==false) {
			$pos_of_index_close = strpos($node,"]");
			$node_name = substr($node, 0, $pos_of_index_open);
			$node_index = substr($node, $pos_of_index_open, $pos_of_index_close - $pos_of_index_open + 1);
			$objString.='->{\''.$node_name.'\'}'.$node_index;
		} else {
			$objString.='->{\''.$node.'\'}';
		}
	}
	$eval_string = '$count = count('.$objString.');';
	eval($eval_string);
	return($count);
}

it works for xpath’s like

• batters[1].batter[1].type
• topping[#].type
• batters[#].batter[#].id

Read more if you want to see examples of how to use it.
Keep reading…

its a sad realization that i get every 4-5 months that i have a blog (in fact pay for a domain and web-space) which i seldom update. today its like 10:30 pm and i’ve made up my mind that i’m going to make a blog post even if it turns out to be unreadable. couldn’t think of a title and i’ve named it “unnamed”, how much more boring it could get!.

i’ve got a few options now. think of something technical, an issue i solved lately or some random technology i read about (like the ipad? ) and write something about it. but not feeling excited about the idea of doing that. even though its a fact that the 7-8 visitors i get daily (yeah you read it right, that’s it!) are the ones who search for my post on fixing webcam issue or generating combinations in PHP, i feel i should write some thing that i can read after years and feel good about or at least invoke some nostalgia.

so the next option would be to write about what has been happening in my life, my work, what’s going good, and what’s going extremely good etc. but i don’t know, i think i’ve become internet shy. i don’t feel like expressing myself or about my life in the internet anymore. i do use facebook or orkut, but only to see updates of my friends, their pictures, their activities etc, but i rarely update anything about myself or do any activity on it (apart from being addicted to farmville till i reached level 20 and it started becoming damn slow and i lost interest). i get a feeling, nah why would people want to read that, or hmm why the hell do they need to know of it!

after about thinking for 15 minutes now, i am able to come up with an option that would help me fill this blog post. since i used the word nostalgia a few minutes ago, i got a bit nostalgic and thought of writing something that i can remember about my school days. i do remember lot of things in my high school but i felt like recollecting things like in my primary school. the most memorable incidents i can remember of school life is getting on to the stage and presenting something in the assembly or for some CCA (co curricular activity). in my 12 years of school life maybe i would’ve gone on stage like 15 times. but each one of them were equally scary and exciting. the farthest i can think of is when i was in 3rd or 4th standard, that’ll be like 1994, thats like 16 years ago!!. i was asked to give a speech about Indira Gandhi on her birthday. My Dad being a good speaker, wrote me the complete speech. I still remember it had sentences like “Indira Gandhi helped in uplifting the downtrodden”. I don’t think i really understood at that age what that really meant. Dad even told me on which words to give stress on, how to stand on the stage and how to present it well. I practiced like lots and was all set for the speech day.

So it was time to present the speech. it was not exactly a stage but a small platform (i guess the platform is still there in front of our school, even though the place we used to have assembly has been occupied by big gardens! ), made in front of the school to hoist the flag. I started off with the words that anybody can utter any day (because its something that we heard everyday in the assembly) – “Respected Teachers and my Dear friends, today i’m going to present before you a speech about Indira Gandhi”. then silence. my mind went blank, i couldn’t remember anything, it was the first time my voice was being amplified through the mic. it was so weird to hear myself so loud enough that even people on the road could hear me! i try to speak and the voice won’t come out, hands and legs start to shiver. what was the first line, yes i can remember the down trodden line but what was the first line!. .. and so it was time to switch to plan B. thank god i had the speech neatly written and kept in my pocket, i wonder what i would’ve done if i didn’t have it with me, maybe i would’ve given up and just walked off, and later to feel humiliated and get bashing from the teachers?. omg!.. without no more hesitation took the paper out from my pocket and read the entire speech without any breaks!. even though during the speech many times i felt my throat go dry and wished i could get some water, i managed to finish it. and then the clap followed. not really because they listened or appreciated the speech, but because they do that automatically they hear the “Thank You” after every talk on the stage. But it was a relief, felt good. Mission Accomplished! oh yes, the mission to write a blog post too accomplished. even better, i got a title for the blog post too! – Mission Accomplished.

Tags: nostalgia, Personal, school

For all those web geeks who used to have their sites in geocities, its time you take backup of your site since geocities is shutting down. The geocities time was almost like an era when people used to make awesome websites with lots of java applets and lots of color. I used to have my first site in geocities and atleast had 4 versions of it with entire different designs. I still have my old site at www.geocities.com/sonyontheweb and can’t think of losing it because it reminds me of my school days where i started using the internet and fell in love with it. My flash works, my greeting cards, my games and lots of other interesting stuff. Don’t know how i could find time for all that. phew!

So here’s how you can download your entire site in one shot (sorry windows users this is only for linux). Many of you might be knowing it but thought it would be useful for those who were unaware of it. the easiest way is to use wget. it worked so smooth for me. here’s an example.

$  wget      --recursive     \
                 --no-clobber     \
                 --page-requisites   \
                 --html-extension \
                 --convert-links    \
                 --restrict-file-names=windows  \
                 --domains geocities.com    \
                 --no-parent          www.geocities.com/sonyontheweb/

Here’s where i downloaded my site to and its exactly the same as i had it on geocities. http://sony.sci-india.org/sonyontheweb/www.geocities.com/sonyontheweb/index.htm

Goodbye geocities! We all will miss you!

I got the hard copy of the zend certificate today. i had cleared the exam like a month back. with the certificate i got a sticker. stuck it on my cubicle.

The exam was not that tough. since i used to work with PHP i had a basic idea about all the things. i went through the study material on a weekend, revised it during the weekdays and took the exam on the next weekend. i guess i would’ve answered more than 75% of them correctly. the report they give doesn’t have any grade or marks. they just said PASS.

My name now shows up on the yellow pages too (here).

Tags: certification, php5, zend

why do people twitter? this question arises in me probably because i don’t get anything to twitter most of the times. i normally do it just the for sake of doing it, or because of the fact that most of the geeks do it. most of the times people twitter about some things which are so irrelevant, not useful and that sometimes is irritating. for instance if you write a crappy blog post (almost like this one) nobody is forced to read it, somebody who might want to read might read it. But when you twitter something useless you almost force the guys following you to read that useless one liner you just tweeted.

Some cases that do seem valid to me.

- i understand when some celebrities have a twitter account. it makes sense since they’ll be roaming around the world and they’ll be doing variety of stuff in their life which would be very interesting to the fans who follow him

- when news sites like cnn have a twitter its helpful since that helps you to get the news updates in a very short and quick manner

- that you got swine flu. would make a lot of sense so that people can stay away from you!

Some tweets i find weird and useless

- tweeint/RTing some links. why can’t they use some bookmarking sites or someting else to share these links. why bombard those links to all his followers who might not be interested to see it.

- tweeting very obvious/boring things like “went to office” . does it help somebody who search for “office” to realize that a person named you is going to office daily and is having no work to do and sends boring tweets??

- and most of the people twitter just to show off. for eg. “i’m waiting at the airport”, “i had pizzas for lunch”, “oh there’s a scratch on my new ipod” , “is working on some <jargon-here>!” , and some other tweets which only maybe intellects like Einstein can understand.

i wonder what Einstein would’ve tweeted if he was alive – “yay!, i figured out that E=MC^2″, that would’ve been a lot of information.

Tags: twitter