Tag: WordPress (Page 22 of 220)

Articles, tips, and resources for WordPress-based development.

Tools for Writing Better WordPress Code: Static Analysis

August 12, 2019 / Tom

In the most recent post of this series (which is admittedly some time ago), I talked at length about Composer and its lock file.

I recommend reading the previous two articles because Composer is eventually going to play a role in this material that this and future posts are going to share. But if you opt not to catch up on them (or are already familiar with Composer) then the gist of the previous posts are, respectively, as follows:

I don’t recommend checking the vendor directory into your repository. That can become a huge directory later, and it can undermine the whole purpose of Composer.
Composer

The goal is to make sure that every one is running the same version of the dependencies of the project – not older versions, not newer versions – but the same version.
The Composer Lock File

With that said, there are numerous dependencies or packages that we can install that help us to make sure that we’re writing the highest quality code possible.

Sure, some of these may be in the form of something like coding standards, but those are really more rules than they are elements of writing high quality code (though I don’t think they should be left out of the discussion – just left out at this time 🙃).

Back to the tools in question: What are some tools that help write high quality WordPress code? I’m going to share a few of my favorites and them I’m going to talk about how we can run them all against a code base.

First, let’s take a look at static analysis with PHPStan.

Sending Authorization Headers with WordPress

August 1, 2019 / Tom

Whenever we’re making remote requests with WordPress, we’re likely going to be using one of the following functions:

And, yes, sometimes we’ll be using cURL depending on the nature of the project, but that’s outside the content of this post.

For this article, I want to talk specifically about making remote requests and specifying headers against a third-party API.

Adding Multiple Coding Standards with Composer

July 24, 2019 / Tom

It’s one thing to be using PHP CodeSniffer manually but if you’re using a utility such as GrumPHP to check your work before committing it to the repository, then you’re likely going to want to use the version that you’re installing with your project.

This assumes that:

You are installing PHP CodeSniffer local to your project,
You want to install a specific set of coding standards to run against your code.

Remember, this is also done in the context of wanting to run automated scripts during the commit process and in a local environment (versus a global setting) with Composer.

The Difference in cURL and WordPress Requests

July 1, 2019 / Tom

cURL is a very popular PHP library that I’ve referenced in several posts other posts (1 and 2, for example). And it’s one that I think should be reviewed, explored, and possibly used by anyone working in PHP (yes, even those working in WordPress).

But because of the native WordPress APIs, we do have a level of abstraction that allows us to achieve much of the same functionality (if not the same functionality).

Specifically, I’m talking about wp_safe_remote_get.

This function is ideal when the HTTP request is being made to an arbitrary URL. The URL is validated to avoid redirection and request forgery attacks.

I specifically mention the safe variant of this function for the definition above (there is another variant, but it’s important to take precautions against arbitrary URLs for security reasons).
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A Case for Building Web Applications on WordPress

May 30, 2019 / Tom

The content of this post is essentially the text version of the talk that I recently gave at WordCamp Atlanta 2019. Sure, some parts are left out, and some parts are modified but I do that since this is a different medium and certain statements or examples don’t translate as well. 🙃

The purpose of the talk, as you can tell from the title, is presenting a case for building web applications with WordPress.

I believe it can be done – because I’ve seen it done and worked with teams who do it – but before actually looking into the reasons why I think it’s a good foundation for certain applications, I also want to clarify terminology that we toss around a bit.

Ultimately, I want to define my terms so there isn’t any confusion, and then I want to use said terms to move forward.

But enough of the setup, right? Here’s the content of the talk.