WarpConduit Computing

Enabling Gzip Compression of PHP, CSS, and JS Files Without mod_deflate

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Normally you can easily enable Gzip compression using mod_deflate by adding the following lines to your .htaccess file:


AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css text/javascript application/javascript application/x-javascript

But for those of you on shared hosts that don’t allow the mod_deflate module and run PHP in CGI/FastCGI mode you can’t go with the easy method.

So, to serve up your PHP, CSS, and JS files you can try the following method.

Note 1: Your shared web hosting account must support custom php.ini and .htaccess files.

Note 2: Be careful when mixing this solution with other cache/compression applications.

Step 1: PHP Configuration

Add or modify the following lines in your custom php.ini file:

output_handler = Off
zlib.output_compression = On
zlib.output_handler = ob_gzhandler

Now this will take care of gzipping all PHP files.

Step 2: .htaccess Configuration

Add the following lines to the bottom of a .htaccess file in the root of your website.


RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*\.js) gzip.php?type=js&file=$1
RewriteRule ^(.*\.css) gzip.php?type=css&file=$1

This will redirect all requests for .css and .js files through gzip.php, which we will create in the next step.

Step 3: File Processing PHP Script

The following PHP script will inherently use the PHP compression you’ve already enabled and also add headers to your files take advantage of your client’s browser cache to make subsequent loads faster.

Create a file named gzip.php in your website’s root and add the following lines to it:

Great! With these steps in place your css and javascript files will be processed by gzip.php and output using PHP’s gzip compression library (zlib).

This method can be extended to more filetypes by adding to the allowed file types in gzip.php and adding more lines to your .htaccess file.

Interesting UNIX Time Stamps

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For your reading pleasure, some interesting UNIX time stamps:

0 – UNIX Time Begins – Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT/UTC
2147483647 – Last 32-bit SIGNED INT – Tue, 19 Jan 2038 03:14:07 GMT/UTC
4294967295 – Last 32-bit UNSIGNED INT – Sun, 07 Feb 2106 06:28:15 GMT/UTC
9999999999 – Last INT(10) – Sat, 20 Nov 2286 17:46:39 GMT/UTC
99999999999 – Last INT(11) – Wed, 16 Nov 5138 09:46:39 GMT/UTC
999999999999 – Last INT(12) – Fri, 27 Sep 33658 01:46:39 GMT/UTC

UNIX time stamps converted using OnlineConversion.com.

PHP’s in_array() vs. jQuery’s inArray()

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This one stumped me for a bit when i was trying to use jQuery to populate checkboxes with a list of items pulled from a database using PHP.

The fact of the matter is that PHP’s in_array() returns a boolean whereas jQuery’s inArray() returns the index of the matching element, or if the element is not found it will return -1 or undefined, depending on the browser.

Problem

If you are used to using PHP like me jQuery’s inArray() can give you a headache when you are using the returned value of the function in an if-else condition. This is because -1 evaluates as true, when you really want it to evaluate as false.

Solution

Make it so that your if-else condition checks for a value >=0 (greater than or equal to zero). Since array’s don’t have negative indexes you’re safe doing it this way.

What did i learn from this? When working with a new function check the documentation for what type of data it will return.

jQuery.inArray Documentation

Example

RewriteRule and Trailing Slashes

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Just a quick post today, i needed to redirect a URL with and without a trailing slash to the same destination, but didn’t want to create two separate rules, so I did some searching and found that it is very simple.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^.*$
RewriteRule ^video(/)?$ http://video.somedomain.com [R=301,L]

The (/)? is the key to matching a url with or without a trailing slash.