How to add a directory to your path in Ubuntu

Open up the terminal
Type the command
echo $PATH
This gives you the current path.
Let's say you want to add the directory /home/mick/temp to the path...
Copy the current path you have just echo'd. Lets's say it's
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin
First make sure you are in your home directory by typing
cd ~
Open the file .bashrc using an editor such as gedit using
gedit .bashrc
Go to the bottom of the file and add a line
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin
Where the existing path is just pasted in.
Now add a colon followed by the path you'd like to add so that it reads
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/home/mick/temp
Save the file and restart your computer.
Now any excecutable placed in can also be available wherever you are on your installation.
This will be useful in following blog entries.

Hiding website directories from Johnnie Hacker using a .htaccess file

OK, here's the situation.
You're creating a website.
You want a directory called say 'classes'.
You need to access stuff contained in 'classes', but you don't want a user of your site to access the 'classes' directory through something like this http://www.yoursite.com/classes/
I'm assuming you've shown the good sense to use the apache web server here and that you haven't fallen foul of the Microsoft marketing machine or foolishly believed that you get what you pay for. That said, there are some good web servers other than apache.
I digress. Anyway, here is how to do it.


Go into the directory you wish to deny access to.
Create a file called .htaccess
Add a single line to the file namely:
deny from all
Save the file and restart apache.


If for some reason this doesn't work, it may be the way your apache server is set up.
Look for a file such as:
/etc/apache2/sites-available/default
That's if you're using a proper operating system. Goodness knows what it would be if you were using Windows.
In here you will see a few lines which look like this:

<Directory /var/www/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
Change the line which says 'AllowOverride None' to 'AllowOverride All'.
Now restart apache again.

You can now add similar .htaccess files to any directories you want to control.

How to get all the content from a directory using PHP

I've been developing a small CMS. It solves a small problem. Some of our customers would like to edit small amounts of text on a page. I don't want to create a CMS database for this. I just want to use text files. There is a tiny CMS which does this, but your website has to be in root, there is an install and it's a bit of a pig to configure.
My CMS is much simpler than that.
Anyway, to cut a long story short I created a PHP function for it which I wanted to share. It takes a directory name as a parameter then looks at that directory  and reads all the files within it. Obviously missing out those ugly  . and .. at the beginning. Manipulate at will.


<?php
function getDirContents($dirLoc)
{  
    foreach(array_slice(scandir($dirLoc),2) as $fileEntry)
    {
        echo file_get_contents($dirLoc.'/'.$fileEntry);
    }
}
?>