Vol. 5, Issue 1 Vol. 5, Issue 1 4.99 CAD 4.19 USD 10.99 CAD 9.19 USD PDFLib’s Block Tool If you’ve been developing for any length of time, you’ve probably been tasked with to generating PDFs at some point. In this article, an excerpt from Beginning PDF Programming with PHP and PDFlib, Ron Goff discusses the process of combining data from many sources into a single PDF—from installation of the block tool, to creating the blocks in Adobe Acrobat, and then finally working with the blocks via PDFlib. Click here for this month's sample article. PHP Look Back 2005 A new year is upon us, and as is customary in the PHP world, it is time to reflect on the events of the past year. Derick Rethans, a PHP internals developer, has been publishing a PHP Look Back for a few years, now, and this year, we saw it fitting to publish it in php|architect. Happy 2006! Internationalize Your Web Application With Less PHP Code Internationalization of a web application can be tricky, but it doesn't need to be. Author Carl McDade introduces a simple i18n technique which uses less PHP code, and consists mainly of easy to maintain HTML. FPDI in Detail Most PHP developers have the ability to create PDF documents on the fly, but are they able to build documents from existing templates? PDFLib has supported this through its PDI interface, but the free classes didn't external documents, until author Jan Slabon released FPDI for FPDF. Join him in his discussion on how to use FPDI. Security Corner: Email Injection This month, for the second anniversary of Security Corner, Chris Shiflett takes a look at email injection, a common exploit that targets PHP applications that use the mail() function. You will see a few example email injection attacks and some simple and effective methods of prevention. Tips & Tricks: Output Buffering Output is generally sent from calls to echo or print, or from outside PHP code blocks, and once it’s sent, it’s gone. However, using PHP’s output buffering functionality, it is possible to capture this output and further manipulate it before sending to the client. In this month’s Tips & Tricks, columnist Ben Ramsey shows you why and how to control output with output buffering. Test Pattern: Why is it Taking so Long? How long does it take to push out a new feature? Not the man/hours spent coding, but the actual dates. From the point of deciding to implement something, by what date are the users actually using it? Marcus Baker discusses “lead time.” It’s not just an academic measure; it’s actually the most important measurement a development team can make, even if it’s a little simplistic.