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coding-guidelines.html
0001 <!DOCTYPE html>
0002 <html dir="ltr" lang="en">
0003 <head>
0004 <meta charset="utf-8">
0005 <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
0006 <meta name="keywords" content="" />
0007 <meta name="description" content="Rhea coding guidelines document" />
0008 <title>phpBB3 • Coding Guidelines</title>
0009
0010 <link href="assets/css/stylesheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" />
0011
0012 </head>
0013
0014 <body id="phpbb" class="section-docs">
0015
0016 <div id="wrap">
0017 <a id="top" name="top" accesskey="t"></a>
0018 <div id="page-header">
0019 <div class="headerbar">
0020 <div class="inner">
0021
0022 <div id="doc-description">
0023 <a href="../index.php" id="logo"><img src="assets/images/site_logo.gif" alt="" /></a>
0024 <h1>Coding Guidelines</h1>
0025 <p>Rhea coding guidelines document</p>
0026 <p style="display: none;"><a href="#start_here">Skip</a></p>
0027 </div>
0028
0029 </div>
0030 </div>
0031 </div>
0032
0033 <a name="start_here"></a>
0034
0035 <div id="page-body">
0036
0037 <!-- BEGIN DOCUMENT -->
0038
0039 <p class="paragraph main-description">
0040 These are the phpBB Coding Guidelines for Rhea, all attempts should be made to follow them as closely as possible.
0041 </p>
0042
0043 <h1>Coding Guidelines</h1>
0044
0045 <div class="paragraph menu">
0046 <div class="inner">
0047
0048 <div class="content">
0049
0050 <ol>
0051 <li><a href="#defaults">Defaults</a>
0052 <ol style="list-style-type: lower-roman;">
0053 <li><a href="#editorsettings">Editor Settings</a></li>
0054 <li><a href="#fileheader">File Header</a></li>
0055 <li><a href="#locations">File Locations</a></li>
0056 <li><a href="#constants">Special Constants</a></li>
0057 </ol>
0058 </li>
0059 <li><a href="#code">Code Layout/Guidelines</a>
0060 <ol style="list-style-type: lower-roman;">
0061 <li><a href="#namingvars">Variable/Function/Class Naming</a></li>
0062 <li><a href="#codelayout">Code Layout</a></li>
0063 <li><a href="#sql">SQL/SQL Layout</a></li>
0064 <li><a href="#optimizing">Optimizations</a></li>
0065 <li><a href="#general">General Guidelines</a></li>
0066 <li><a href="#phprestrictions">Restrictions on the Use of PHP</a></li>
0067 </ol>
0068 </li>
0069 <li><a href="#styling">Styling</a>
0070 <ol style="list-style-type: lower-roman;">
0071 <li><a href="#cfgfiles">Style Config Files</a></li>
0072 <li><a href="#genstyling">General Styling Rules</a></li>
0073 </ol></li>
0074 <li><a href="#templating">Templating</a>
0075 <ol style="list-style-type: lower-roman;">
0076 <li><a href="#templates">General Templating</a></li>
0077 <li><a href="#stylestree">Styles Tree</a></li>
0078 <li><a href="#template-events">Template Events</a></li>
0079 </ol></li>
0080 <li><a href="#charsets">Character Sets and Encodings</a></li>
0081 <li><a href="#translation">Translation (<abbr title="Internationalisation">i18n</abbr>/<abbr title="Localisation">L10n</abbr>) Guidelines</a>
0082 <ol style="list-style-type: lower-roman;">
0083 <li><a href="#standardisation">Standardisation</a></li>
0084 <li><a href="#otherconsiderations">Other considerations</a></li>
0085 <li><a href="#placeholders">Working with placeholders</a></li>
0086 <li><a href="#usingplurals">Using plurals</a></li>
0087 <li><a href="#writingstyle">Writing Style</a></li>
0088 </ol>
0089 </li>
0090 <li><a href="#disclaimer">Copyright and disclaimer</a></li>
0091 </ol>
0092
0093 </div>
0094
0095 </div>
0096 </div>
0097
0098 <hr />
0099
0100 <a name="defaults"></a><h2>1. Defaults</h2>
0101
0102 <div class="paragraph">
0103 <div class="inner">
0104
0105 <div class="content">
0106
0107 <a name="editorsettings"></a><h3>1.i. Editor Settings</h3>
0108
0109 <h4>Tabs vs Spaces:</h4>
0110 <p>In order to make this as simple as possible, we will be using tabs, not spaces. We enforce 4 (four) spaces for one tab - therefore you need to set your tab width within your editor to 4 spaces. Make sure that when you <strong>save</strong> the file, it's saving tabs and not spaces. This way, we can each have the code be displayed the way we like it, without breaking the layout of the actual files.</p>
0111 <p>Tabs in front of lines are no problem, but having them within the text can be a problem if you do not set it to the amount of spaces every one of us uses. Here is a short example of how it should look like:</p>
0112
0113 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0114 {TAB}$mode{TAB}{TAB}= $request->variable('mode', '');
0115 {TAB}$search_id{TAB}= $request->variable('search_id', '');</pre>
0116 </div>
0117
0118 <p>If entered with tabs (replace the {TAB}) both equal signs need to be on the same column.</p>
0119
0120 <h3>Linefeeds:</h3>
0121 <p>Ensure that your editor is saving files in the UNIX (LF) line ending format. This means that lines are terminated with a newline, not with Windows Line endings (CR/LF combo) as they are on Win32 or Classic Mac (CR) Line endings. Any decent editor should be able to do this, but it might not always be the default setting. Know your editor. If you want advice for an editor for your Operating System, just ask one of the developers. Some of them do their editing on Win32.</p>
0122
0123 <a name="fileheader"></a><h3>1.ii. File Layout</h3>
0124
0125 <h4>Standard header for new files:</h4>
0126 <p>This template of the header must be included at the start of all phpBB files: </p>
0127
0128 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0129 /**
0130 *
0131 * This file is part of the phpBB Forum Software package.
0132 *
0133 * @copyright (c) phpBB Limited <https://www.phpbb.com>
0134 * @license GNU General Public License, version 2 (GPL-2.0)
0135 *
0136 * For full copyright and license information, please see
0137 * the docs/CREDITS.txt file.
0138 *
0139 */</pre>
0140 </div>
0141
0142 <p>Please see the <a href="#locations">File Locations section</a> for the correct package name.</p>
0143
0144 <h4>PHP closing tags</h4>
0145
0146 <p>A file containg only PHP code should not end with the optional PHP closing tag <strong>?></strong> to avoid issues with whitespace following it.</p>
0147
0148 <h4>Newline at end of file</h4>
0149
0150 <p>All files should end in a newline so the last line does not appear as modified in diffs, when a line is appended to the file.</p>
0151
0152 <h4>Files containing inline code:</h4>
0153
0154 <p>For those files you have to put an empty comment directly after the header to prevent the documentor assigning the header to the first code element found.</p>
0155
0156 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0157 /**
0158 * {HEADER}
0159 */
0160
0161 /**
0162 */
0163 {CODE}</pre>
0164 </div>
0165
0166 <h4>Files containing only functions:</h4>
0167
0168 <p>Do not forget to comment the functions (especially the first function following the header). Each function should have at least a comment of what this function does. For more complex functions it is recommended to document the parameters too.</p>
0169
0170 <h4>Files containing only classes:</h4>
0171
0172 <p>Do not forget to comment the class. Classes need a separate @package definition, it is the same as the header package name. Apart from this special case the above statement for files containing only functions needs to be applied to classes and it's methods too.</p>
0173
0174 <h4>Code following the header but only functions/classes file:</h4>
0175
0176 <p>If this case is true, the best method to avoid documentation confusions is adding an ignore command, for example:</p>
0177
0178 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0179 /**
0180 * {HEADER}
0181 */
0182
0183 /**
0184 * @ignore
0185 */
0186 Small code snipped, mostly one or two defines or an if statement
0187
0188 /**
0189 * {DOCUMENTATION}
0190 */
0191 class ...</pre>
0192 </div>
0193
0194 <a name="locations"></a><h3>1.iii. File Locations</h3>
0195
0196 <p>Functions used by more than one page should be placed in functions.php, functions specific to one page should be placed on that page (at the bottom) or within the relevant sections functions file. Some files in <code>/includes</code> are holding functions responsible for special sections, for example uploading files, displaying "things", user related functions and so forth.</p>
0197
0198 <p>The following packages are defined, and related new features/functions should be placed within the mentioned files/locations, as well as specifying the correct package name. The package names are bold within this list:</p>
0199
0200 <ul>
0201 <li><strong>phpBB3</strong><br />Core files and all files not assigned to a separate package</li>
0202 <li><strong>acm</strong><br /><code>/phpbb/cache</code><br />Cache System</li>
0203 <li><strong>acp</strong><br /><code>/adm</code>, <code>/includes/acp</code>, <code>/includes/functions_admin.php</code><br />Administration Control Panel</li>
0204 <li><strong>dbal</strong><br /><code>/phpbb/db</code>, <code>/includes/db</code><br />Database Abstraction Layer.
0205 <ul>
0206 <li><code>/phpbb/db/driver/</code><br />Database Abstraction Layer classes</li>
0207 <li><code>/phpbb/db/migration/</code><br />Migrations are used for updating the database from one release to another</li>
0208 </ul>
0209 </li>
0210 <li><strong>diff</strong><br /><code>/includes/diff</code><br />Diff Engine</li>
0211 <li><strong>docs</strong><br /><code>/docs</code><br />phpBB Documentation</li>
0212 <li><strong>images</strong><br /><code>/images</code><br />All global images not connected to styles</li>
0213 <li><strong>install</strong><br /><code>/install</code><br />Installation System</li>
0214 <li><strong>language</strong><br /><code>/language</code><br />All language files</li>
0215 <li><strong>login</strong><br /><code>/phpbb/auth</code><br />Login Authentication Plugins</li>
0216 <li><strong>VC</strong><br /><code>/includes/captcha</code><br />CAPTCHA</li>
0217 <li><strong>mcp</strong><br /><code>mcp.php</code>, <code>/includes/mcp</code>, <code>report.php</code><br />Moderator Control Panel</li>
0218 <li><strong>ucp</strong><br /><code>ucp.php</code>, <code>/includes/ucp</code><br />User Control Panel</li>
0219 <li><strong>utf</strong><br /><code>/includes/utf</code><br />UTF8-related functions/classes</li>
0220 <li><strong>search</strong><br /><code>/phpbb/search</code>, <code>search.php</code><br />Search System</li>
0221 <li><strong>styles</strong><br /><code>/styles</code><br />phpBB Styles/Templates/Themes</li>
0222 </ul>
0223
0224 <a name="constants"></a><h3>1.iv. Special Constants</h3>
0225
0226 <p>There are some special constants application developers are able to utilize to bend some of phpBB's internal functionality to suit their needs.</p>
0227
0228 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0229 PHPBB_MSG_HANDLER (overwrite message handler)
0230 PHPBB_DB_NEW_LINK (overwrite new_link parameter for sql_connect)
0231 PHPBB_ROOT_PATH (overwrite $phpbb_root_path)
0232 PHPBB_ADMIN_PATH (overwrite $phpbb_admin_path)
0233 PHPBB_USE_BOARD_URL_PATH (use generate_board_url() for image paths instead of $phpbb_root_path)
0234 PHPBB_DISABLE_ACP_EDITOR (disable ACP style editor for templates)
0235 PHPBB_DISABLE_CONFIG_CHECK (disable ACP config.php writeable check)
0236
0237 PHPBB_ACM_MEMCACHE_PORT (overwrite memcached port, default is 11211)
0238 PHPBB_ACM_MEMCACHE_COMPRESS (overwrite memcached compress setting, default is disabled)
0239 PHPBB_ACM_MEMCACHE_HOST (overwrite memcached host name, default is localhost)
0240
0241 PHPBB_ACM_REDIS_HOST (overwrite redis host name, default is localhost)
0242 PHPBB_ACM_REDIS_PORT (overwrite redis port, default is 6379)
0243 PHPBB_ACM_REDIS_PASSWORD (overwrite redis password, default is empty)
0244 PHPBB_ACM_REDIS_DB (overwrite redis default database)
0245
0246 PHPBB_QA (Set board to QA-Mode, which means the updater also checks for RC-releases)
0247 </pre></div>
0248
0249 <h4>PHPBB_USE_BOARD_URL_PATH</h4>
0250
0251 <p>If the <code>PHPBB_USE_BOARD_URL_PATH</code> constant is set to true, phpBB uses generate_board_url() (this will return the boards url with the script path included) on all instances where web-accessible images are loaded. The exact locations are:</p>
0252
0253 <ul>
0254 <li>/phpbb/user.php - \phpbb\user::img()</li>
0255 <li>/includes/functions_content.php - smiley_text()</li>
0256 </ul>
0257
0258 <p>Path locations for the following template variables are affected by this too:</p>
0259
0260 <ul>
0261 <li>{T_ASSETS_PATH} - assets (non-style specific, static resources)</li>
0262 <li>{T_THEME_PATH} - styles/xxx/theme</li>
0263 <li>{T_TEMPLATE_PATH} - styles/xxx/template</li>
0264 <li>{T_SUPER_TEMPLATE_PATH} - styles/xxx/template</li>
0265 <li>{T_IMAGES_PATH} - images/</li>
0266 <li>{T_SMILIES_PATH} - $config['smilies_path']/</li>
0267 <li>{T_AVATAR_PATH} - $config['avatar_path']/</li>
0268 <li>{T_AVATAR_GALLERY_PATH} - $config['avatar_gallery_path']/</li>
0269 <li>{T_ICONS_PATH} - $config['icons_path']/</li>
0270 <li>{T_RANKS_PATH} - $config['ranks_path']/</li>
0271 <li>{T_UPLOAD_PATH} - $config['upload_path']/</li>
0272 <li>{T_STYLESHEET_LINK} - styles/xxx/theme/stylesheet.css</li>
0273 <li>New template variable {BOARD_URL} for the board url + script path.</li>
0274 </ul>
0275
0276 </div>
0277
0278 <div class="back2top"><a href="#wrap" class="top">Back to Top</a></div>
0279
0280 </div>
0281 </div>
0282
0283 <hr />
0284
0285 <a name="code"></a><h2>2. Code Layout/Guidelines</h2>
0286
0287 <div class="paragraph">
0288 <div class="inner">
0289
0290 <div class="content">
0291
0292 <p>Please note that these guidelines apply to all php, html, javascript and css files.</p>
0293
0294 <a name="namingvars"></a><h3>2.i. Variable/Function/Class Naming</h3>
0295
0296 <p>We will not be using any form of hungarian notation in our naming conventions. Many of us believe that hungarian naming is one of the primary code obfuscation techniques currently in use.</p>
0297
0298 <h4>Variable Names:</h4>
0299 <p>In PHP, variable names should be in all lowercase, with words separated by an underscore, example:</p>
0300
0301 <div class="indent">
0302 <p><code>$current_user</code> is right, but <code>$currentuser</code> and <code> $currentUser</code> are not.</p>
0303 </div>
0304
0305 <p>In JavaScript, variable names should use camel case:</p>
0306
0307 <div class="indent">
0308 <p><code>currentUser</code> is right, but <code>currentuser</code> and <code>current_user</code> are not.</p>
0309 </div>
0310
0311 <p>Names should be descriptive, but concise. We don't want huge sentences as our variable names, but typing an extra couple of characters is always better than wondering what exactly a certain variable is for. </p>
0312
0313 <h4>Loop Indices:</h4>
0314 <p>The <em>only</em> situation where a one-character variable name is allowed is when it's the index for some looping construct. In this case, the index of the outer loop should always be $i. If there's a loop inside that loop, its index should be $j, followed by $k, and so on. If the loop is being indexed by some already-existing variable with a meaningful name, this guideline does not apply, example:</p>
0315
0316 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0317 for ($i = 0; $i < $outer_size; $i++)
0318 {
0319 for ($j = 0; $j < $inner_size; $j++)
0320 {
0321 foo($i, $j);
0322 }
0323 }</pre>
0324 </div>
0325
0326 <h4>Function Names:</h4>
0327 <p>Functions should also be named descriptively. We're not programming in C here, we don't want to write functions called things like "stristr()". Again, all lower-case names with words separated by a single underscore character in PHP, and camel caps in JavaScript. Function names should be prefixed with "phpbb_" and preferably have a verb in them somewhere. Good function names are <code>phpbb_print_login_status()</code>, <code>phpbb_get_user_data()</code>, etc. Constructor functions in JavaScript should begin with a capital letter.</p>
0328
0329 <h4>Function Arguments:</h4>
0330 <p>Arguments are subject to the same guidelines as variable names. We don't want a bunch of functions like: <code>do_stuff($a, $b, $c)</code>. In most cases, we'd like to be able to tell how to use a function by just looking at its declaration. </p>
0331
0332 <h4>Class Names:</h4>
0333
0334 <p>Apart from following the rules for function names, all classes should meet the following conditions:</p>
0335 <ul>
0336 <li>Every class must be defined in a separate file.</li>
0337 <li>The classes have to be located in a subdirectory of <code>phpbb/</code>.</li>
0338 <li>Classnames must be namespaced with <code>\phpbb\</code> to avoid name clashes.</li>
0339 <li>Class names/namespaces have to reflect the location of the file they are defined in. The namespace must be the directory in which the file is located. So the directory names must not contain any underscores, but the filename may.</li>
0340 <li>Directories should typically be a singular noun (e.g. <code>dir</code> in the example below, not <code>dirs</code>.</li>
0341 </ul>
0342
0343 <p>So given the following example directory structure you would result in the below listed lookups</p>
0344 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0345 phpbb/
0346 class_name.php
0347 dir/
0348 class_name.php
0349 subdir/
0350 class_name.php</pre>
0351 </div>
0352
0353 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0354 \phpbb\class_name - phpbb/class_name.php
0355 \phpbb\dir\class_name - phpbb/dir/class_name.php
0356 \phpbb\dir\subdir\class_name - phpbb/dir/subdir/class_name.php</pre>
0357 </div>
0358
0359
0360 <h4>Summary:</h4>
0361 <p>The basic philosophy here is to not hurt code clarity for the sake of laziness. This has to be balanced by a little bit of common sense, though; <code>phpbb_print_login_status_for_a_given_user()</code> goes too far, for example -- that function would be better named <code>phpbb_print_user_login_status()</code>, or just <code>phpbb_print_login_status()</code>.</p>
0362
0363 <h4>Special Namings: </h4>
0364 <p>For all emoticons use the term <code>smiley</code> in singular and <code>smilies</code> in plural. For emails we use the term <code>email</code> (without dash between “e” and “m”).</p>
0365
0366 <a name="codelayout"></a><h3>2.ii. Code Layout</h3>
0367
0368 <h4>Always include the braces:</h4>
0369 <p>This is another case of being too lazy to type 2 extra characters causing problems with code clarity. Even if the body of some construct is only one line long, do <em>not</em> drop the braces. Just don't, examples:</p>
0370
0371 <p class="bad">// These are all wrong. </p>
0372
0373 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0374 if (condition) do_stuff();
0375
0376 if (condition)
0377 do_stuff();
0378
0379 while (condition)
0380 do_stuff();
0381
0382 for ($i = 0; $i < size; $i++)
0383 do_stuff($i);</pre>
0384 </div>
0385
0386 <p class="good">// These are all right. </p>
0387 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0388 if (condition)
0389 {
0390 do_stuff();
0391 }
0392
0393 while (condition)
0394 {
0395 do_stuff();
0396 }
0397
0398 for ($i = 0; $i < size; $i++)
0399 {
0400 do_stuff();
0401 }</pre>
0402 </div>
0403
0404 <h4>Where to put the braces:</h4>
0405 <p>In PHP code, braces always go on their own line. The closing brace should also always be at the same column as the corresponding opening brace, examples:</p>
0406
0407 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0408 if (condition)
0409 {
0410 while (condition2)
0411 {
0412 ...
0413 }
0414 }
0415 else
0416 {
0417 ...
0418 }
0419
0420 for ($i = 0; $i < $size; $i++)
0421 {
0422 ...
0423 }
0424
0425 while (condition)
0426 {
0427 ...
0428 }
0429
0430 function do_stuff()
0431 {
0432 ...
0433 }</pre>
0434 </div>
0435
0436 <p>In JavaScript code, braces always go on the same line:</p>
0437
0438 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0439 if (condition) {
0440 while (condition2) {
0441 ...
0442 }
0443 } else {
0444 ...
0445 }
0446
0447 for (var i = 0; i < size; i++) {
0448 ...
0449 }
0450
0451 while (condition) {
0452 ...
0453 }
0454
0455 function do_stuff() {
0456 ...
0457 }</pre>
0458 </div>
0459
0460 <h4>Use spaces between tokens:</h4>
0461 <p>This is another simple, easy step that helps keep code readable without much effort. Whenever you write an assignment, expression, etc.. Always leave <em>one</em> space between the tokens. Basically, write code as if it was English. Put spaces between variable names and operators. Don't put spaces just after an opening bracket or before a closing bracket. Don't put spaces just before a comma or a semicolon. This is best shown with a few examples, examples:</p>
0462
0463 <p>// Each pair shows the wrong way followed by the right way. </p>
0464
0465 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0466 $i=0;
0467 $i = 0;
0468
0469 if($i<7) ...
0470 if ($i < 7) ...
0471
0472 if ( ($i < 7)&&($j > 8) ) ...
0473 if ($i < 7 && $j > 8) ...
0474
0475 do_stuff( $i, 'foo', $b );
0476 do_stuff($i, 'foo', $b);
0477
0478 for($i=0; $i<$size; $i++) ...
0479 for ($i = 0; $i < $size; $i++) ...
0480
0481 $i=($j < $size)?0:1;
0482 $i = ($j < $size) ? 0 : 1;</pre>
0483 </div>
0484
0485 <h4>Operator precedence:</h4>
0486 <p>Do you know the exact precedence of all the operators in PHP? Neither do I. Don't guess. Always make it obvious by using brackets to force the precedence of an equation so you know what it does. Remember to not over-use this, as it may harden the readability. Basically, do not enclose single expressions. Examples:</p>
0487
0488 <p class="bad">// what's the result? who knows. </p>
0489 <div class="codebox">
0490 <pre>$bool = ($i < 7 && $j > 8 || $k == 4);</pre>
0491 </div>
0492
0493 <p class="bad">// now you can be certain what I'm doing here.</p>
0494 <div class="codebox">
0495 <pre>$bool = (($i < 7) && (($j < 8) || ($k == 4)));</pre>
0496 </div>
0497
0498 <p class="good">// But this one is even better, because it is easier on the eye but the intention is preserved</p>
0499 <div class="codebox">
0500 <pre>$bool = ($i < 7 && ($j < 8 || $k == 4));</pre>
0501 </div>
0502
0503 <h4>Quoting strings:</h4>
0504 <p>There are two different ways to quote strings in PHP - either with single quotes or with double quotes. The main difference is that the parser does variable interpolation in double-quoted strings, but not in single quoted strings. Because of this, you should <em>always</em> use single quotes <em>unless</em> you specifically need variable interpolation to be done on that string. This way, we can save the parser the trouble of parsing a bunch of strings where no interpolation needs to be done.</p>
0505 <p>Also, if you are using a string variable as part of a function call, you do not need to enclose that variable in quotes. Again, this will just make unnecessary work for the parser. Note, however, that nearly all of the escape sequences that exist for double-quoted strings will not work with single-quoted strings. Be careful, and feel free to break this guideline if it's making your code easier to read, examples:</p>
0506
0507 <p class="bad">// wrong </p>
0508 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0509 $str = "This is a really long string with no variables for the parser to find.";
0510
0511 do_stuff("$str");</pre>
0512 </div>
0513
0514 <p class="good">// right</p>
0515 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0516 $str = 'This is a really long string with no variables for the parser to find.';
0517
0518 do_stuff($str);</pre>
0519 </div>
0520
0521 <p class="bad">// Sometimes single quotes are just not right</p>
0522 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0523 $post_url = $phpbb_root_path . 'posting.' . $phpEx . '?mode=' . $mode . '&amp;start=' . $start;</pre>
0524 </div>
0525
0526 <p class="good">// Double quotes are sometimes needed to not overcrowd the line with concatenations.</p>
0527 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0528 $post_url = "{$phpbb_root_path}posting.$phpEx?mode=$mode&amp;start=$start";</pre>
0529 </div>
0530
0531 <p>In SQL statements mixing single and double quotes is partly allowed (following the guidelines listed here about SQL formatting), else one should try to only use one method - mostly single quotes.</p>
0532
0533 <h4>Commas after every array element:</h4>
0534 <p>If an array is defined with each element on its own line, you still have to modify the previous line to add a comma when appending a new element. PHP allows for trailing (useless) commas in array definitions. These should always be used so each element including the comma can be appended with a single line. In JavaScript, do not use the trailing comma, as it causes browsers to throw errors.</p>
0535
0536 <p class="bad">// wrong</p>
0537 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0538 $foo = array(
0539 'bar' => 42,
0540 'boo' => 23
0541 );</pre>
0542 </div>
0543
0544 <p class="good">// right </p>
0545 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0546 $foo = array(
0547 'bar' => 42,
0548 'boo' => 23,
0549 );</pre>
0550 </div>
0551
0552
0553 <h4>Associative array keys:</h4>
0554 <p>In PHP, it's legal to use a literal string as a key to an associative array without quoting that string. We don't want to do this -- the string should always be quoted to avoid confusion. Note that this is only when we're using a literal, not when we're using a variable, examples:</p>
0555
0556 <p class="bad">// wrong</p>
0557 <div class="codebox">
0558 <pre>$foo = $assoc_array[blah];</pre>
0559 </div>
0560
0561 <p class="good">// right </p>
0562 <div class="codebox">
0563 <pre>$foo = $assoc_array['blah'];</pre>
0564 </div>
0565
0566 <p class="bad">// wrong</p>
0567 <div class="codebox">
0568 <pre>$foo = $assoc_array["$var"];</pre>
0569 </div>
0570
0571 <p class="good">// right </p>
0572 <div class="codebox">
0573 <pre>$foo = $assoc_array[$var];</pre>
0574 </div>
0575
0576 <h4>Comments:</h4>
0577 <p>Each complex function should be preceded by a comment that tells a programmer everything they need to know to use that function. The meaning of every parameter, the expected input, and the output are required as a minimal comment. The function's behaviour in error conditions (and what those error conditions are) should also be present - but mostly included within the comment about the output.<br /><br />Especially important to document are any assumptions the code makes, or preconditions for its proper operation. Any one of the developers should be able to look at any part of the application and figure out what's going on in a reasonable amount of time.<br /><br />Avoid using <code>/* */</code> comment blocks for one-line comments, <code>//</code> should be used for one/two-liners.</p>
0578
0579 <h4>Magic numbers:</h4>
0580 <p>Don't use them. Use named constants for any literal value other than obvious special cases. Basically, it's ok to check if an array has 0 elements by using the literal 0. It's not ok to assign some special meaning to a number and then use it everywhere as a literal. This hurts readability AND maintainability. The constants <code>true</code> and <code>false</code> should be used in place of the literals 1 and 0 -- even though they have the same values (but not type!), it's more obvious what the actual logic is when you use the named constants. Typecast variables where it is needed, do not rely on the correct variable type (PHP is currently very loose on typecasting which can lead to security problems if a developer does not keep a very close eye on it).</p>
0581
0582 <h4>Shortcut operators:</h4>
0583 <p>The only shortcut operators that cause readability problems are the shortcut increment <code>$i++</code> and decrement <code>$j--</code> operators. These operators should not be used as part of an expression. They can, however, be used on their own line. Using them in expressions is just not worth the headaches when debugging, examples:</p>
0584
0585 <p class="bad">// wrong </p>
0586 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0587 $array[++$i] = $j;
0588 $array[$i++] = $k;</pre>
0589 </div>
0590
0591 <p class="good">// right </p>
0592 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0593 $i++;
0594 $array[$i] = $j;
0595
0596 $array[$i] = $k;
0597 $i++;</pre>
0598 </div>
0599
0600 <h4>Inline conditionals:</h4>
0601 <p>Inline conditionals should only be used to do very simple things. Preferably, they will only be used to do assignments, and not for function calls or anything complex at all. They can be harmful to readability if used incorrectly, so don't fall in love with saving typing by using them, examples:</p>
0602
0603 <p class="bad">// Bad place to use them</p>
0604 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0605 ($i < $size && $j > $size) ? do_stuff($foo) : do_stuff($bar);</pre>
0606 </div>
0607
0608 <p class="good">// OK place to use them </p>
0609 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0610 $min = ($i < $j) ? $i : $j;</pre>
0611 </div>
0612
0613 <h4>Don't use uninitialized variables.</h4>
0614 <p>For phpBB3, we intend to use a higher level of run-time error reporting. This will mean that the use of an uninitialized variable will be reported as a warning. These warnings can be avoided by using the built-in isset() function to check whether a variable has been set - but preferably the variable is always existing. For checking if an array has a key set this can come in handy though, examples:</p>
0615
0616 <p class="bad">// Wrong </p>
0617 <div class="codebox">
0618 <pre>if ($forum) ...</pre>
0619 </div>
0620
0621 <p class="good">// Right </p>
0622 <div class="codebox">
0623 <pre>if (isset($forum)) ...</pre></div>
0624
0625 <p class="good">// Also possible</p>
0626 <div class="codebox">
0627 <pre>if (isset($forum) && $forum == 5)</pre>
0628 </div>
0629
0630 <p>The <code>empty()</code> function is useful if you want to check if a variable is not set or being empty (an empty string, 0 as an integer or string, NULL, false, an empty array or a variable declared, but without a value in a class). Therefore empty should be used in favor of <code>isset($array) && sizeof($array) > 0</code> - this can be written in a shorter way as <code>!empty($array)</code>.</p>
0631
0632 <h4>Switch statements:</h4>
0633 <p>Switch/case code blocks can get a bit long sometimes. To have some level of notice and being in-line with the opening/closing brace requirement (where they are on the same line for better readability), this also applies to switch/case code blocks and the breaks. An example:</p>
0634
0635 <p class="bad">// Wrong </p>
0636 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0637 switch ($mode)
0638 {
0639 case 'mode1':
0640 // I am doing something here
0641 break;
0642 case 'mode2':
0643 // I am doing something completely different here
0644 break;
0645 }</pre>
0646 </div>
0647
0648 <p class="good">// Good </p>
0649 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0650 switch ($mode)
0651 {
0652 case 'mode1':
0653 // I am doing something here
0654 break;
0655
0656 case 'mode2':
0657 // I am doing something completely different here
0658 break;
0659
0660 default:
0661 // Always assume that a case was not caught
0662 break;
0663 }</pre>
0664 </div>
0665
0666 <p class="good">// Also good, if you have more code between the case and the break </p>
0667 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0668 switch ($mode)
0669 {
0670 case 'mode1':
0671
0672 // I am doing something here
0673
0674 break;
0675
0676 case 'mode2':
0677
0678 // I am doing something completely different here
0679
0680 break;
0681
0682 default:
0683
0684 // Always assume that a case was not caught
0685
0686 break;
0687 }</pre>
0688 </div>
0689
0690 <p>Even if the break for the default case is not needed, it is sometimes better to include it just for readability and completeness.</p>
0691
0692 <p>If no break is intended, please add a comment instead. An example:</p>
0693
0694 <p class="good">// Example with no break </p>
0695 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0696 switch ($mode)
0697 {
0698 case 'mode1':
0699
0700 // I am doing something here
0701
0702 // no break here
0703
0704 case 'mode2':
0705
0706 // I am doing something completely different here
0707
0708 break;
0709
0710 default:
0711
0712 // Always assume that a case was not caught
0713
0714 break;
0715 }</pre>
0716 </div>
0717
0718 <h4>Class Members</h4>
0719 <p>Use the explicit visibility qualifiers <code>public</code>, <code>private</code> and <code>protected</code> for all properties instead of <code>var</code>.
0720
0721 <p>Place the <code>static</code> qualifier before the visibility qualifiers.</p>
0722
0723 <p class="bad">//Wrong </p>
0724 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0725 var $x;
0726 private static function f()</pre>
0727 </div>
0728
0729 <p class="good">// Right </p>
0730 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0731 public $x;
0732 static private function f()</pre>
0733 </div>
0734
0735 <h4>Constants</h4>
0736 <p>Prefer class constants over global constants created with <code>define()</code>.</p>
0737
0738 <a name="sql"></a><h3>2.iii. SQL/SQL Layout</h3>
0739
0740 <h4>Common SQL Guidelines: </h4>
0741 <p>All SQL should be cross-DB compatible, if DB specific SQL is used alternatives must be provided which work on all supported DB's (MySQL3/4/5, MSSQL (7.0 and 2000), PostgreSQL (8.3+), SQLite, Oracle8, ODBC (generalised if possible)).</p>
0742 <p>All SQL commands should utilise the DataBase Abstraction Layer (DBAL)</p>
0743
0744 <h4>SQL code layout:</h4>
0745 <p>SQL Statements are often unreadable without some formatting, since they tend to be big at times. Though the formatting of sql statements adds a lot to the readability of code. SQL statements should be formatted in the following way, basically writing keywords: </p>
0746
0747 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0748 $sql = 'SELECT *
0749 <-one tab->FROM ' . SOME_TABLE . '
0750 <-one tab->WHERE a = 1
0751 <-two tabs->AND (b = 2
0752 <-three tabs->OR b = 3)
0753 <-one tab->ORDER BY b';</pre>
0754 </div>
0755
0756 <p>Here the example with the tabs applied:</p>
0757
0758 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0759 $sql = 'SELECT *
0760 FROM ' . SOME_TABLE . '
0761 WHERE a = 1
0762 AND (b = 2
0763 OR b = 3)
0764 ORDER BY b';</pre>
0765 </div>
0766
0767 <h4>SQL Quotes: </h4>
0768 <p>Use double quotes where applicable. (The variables in these examples are typecasted to integers beforehand.) Examples: </p>
0769
0770 <p class="bad">// These are wrong.</p>
0771 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0772 "UPDATE " . SOME_TABLE . " SET something = something_else WHERE a = $b";
0773
0774 'UPDATE ' . SOME_TABLE . ' SET something = ' . $user_id . ' WHERE a = ' . $something;</pre>
0775 </div>
0776
0777 <p class="good">// These are right. </p>
0778
0779 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0780 'UPDATE ' . SOME_TABLE . " SET something = something_else WHERE a = $b";
0781
0782 'UPDATE ' . SOME_TABLE . " SET something = $user_id WHERE a = $something";</pre>
0783 </div>
0784
0785 <p>In other words use single quotes where no variable substitution is required or where the variable involved shouldn't appear within double quotes. Otherwise use double quotes.</p>
0786
0787 <h4>Avoid DB specific SQL: </h4>
0788 <p>The "not equals operator", as defined by the SQL:2003 standard, is "<>"</p>
0789
0790 <p class="bad">// This is wrong.</p>
0791 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0792 $sql = 'SELECT *
0793 FROM ' . SOME_TABLE . '
0794 WHERE a != 2';</pre>
0795 </div>
0796
0797 <p class="good">// This is right. </p>
0798 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0799 $sql = 'SELECT *
0800 FROM ' . SOME_TABLE . '
0801 WHERE a <> 2';</pre>
0802 </div>
0803
0804 <h4>Common DBAL methods: </h4>
0805
0806 <h4>sql_escape():</h4>
0807
0808 <p>Always use <code>$db->sql_escape()</code> if you need to check for a string within an SQL statement (even if you are sure the variable cannot contain single quotes - never trust your input), for example:</p>
0809
0810 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0811 $sql = 'SELECT *
0812 FROM ' . SOME_TABLE . "
0813 WHERE username = '" . $db->sql_escape($username) . "'";</pre>
0814 </div>
0815
0816 <h4>sql_query_limit():</h4>
0817
0818 <p>We do not add limit statements to the sql query, but instead use <code>$db->sql_query_limit()</code>. You basically pass the query, the total number of lines to retrieve and the offset.</p>
0819
0820 <p><strong>Note: </strong> Since Oracle handles limits differently and because of how we implemented this handling you need to take special care if you use <code>sql_query_limit</code> with an sql query retrieving data from more than one table.</p>
0821
0822 <p>Make sure when using something like "SELECT x.*, y.jars" that there is not a column named jars in x; make sure that there is no overlap between an implicit column and the explicit columns.</p>
0823
0824 <h4>sql_build_array():</h4>
0825
0826 <p>If you need to UPDATE or INSERT data, make use of the <code>$db->sql_build_array()</code> function. This function already escapes strings and checks other types, so there is no need to do this here. The data to be inserted should go into an array - <code>$sql_ary</code> - or directly within the statement if one or two variables needs to be inserted/updated. An example of an insert statement would be:</p>
0827
0828 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0829 $sql_ary = array(
0830 'somedata' => $my_string,
0831 'otherdata' => $an_int,
0832 'moredata' => $another_int,
0833 );
0834
0835 $db->sql_query('INSERT INTO ' . SOME_TABLE . ' ' . $db->sql_build_array('INSERT', $sql_ary));</pre>
0836 </div>
0837
0838 <p>To complete the example, this is how an update statement would look like:</p>
0839
0840 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0841 $sql_ary = array(
0842 'somedata' => $my_string,
0843 'otherdata' => $an_int,
0844 'moredata' => $another_int,
0845 );
0846
0847 $sql = 'UPDATE ' . SOME_TABLE . '
0848 SET ' . $db->sql_build_array('UPDATE', $sql_ary) . '
0849 WHERE user_id = ' . (int) $user_id;
0850 $db->sql_query($sql);</pre>
0851 </div>
0852
0853 <p>The <code>$db->sql_build_array()</code> function supports the following modes: <code>INSERT</code> (example above), <code>INSERT_SELECT</code> (building query for <code>INSERT INTO table (...) SELECT value, column ...</code> statements), <code>UPDATE</code> (example above) and <code>SELECT</code> (for building WHERE statement [AND logic]).</p>
0854
0855 <h4>sql_multi_insert():</h4>
0856
0857 <p>If you want to insert multiple statements at once, please use the separate <code>sql_multi_insert()</code> method. An example:</p>
0858
0859 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0860 $sql_ary = array();
0861
0862 $sql_ary[] = array(
0863 'somedata' => $my_string_1,
0864 'otherdata' => $an_int_1,
0865 'moredata' => $another_int_1,
0866 );
0867
0868 $sql_ary[] = array(
0869 'somedata' => $my_string_2,
0870 'otherdata' => $an_int_2,
0871 'moredata' => $another_int_2,
0872 );
0873
0874 $db->sql_multi_insert(SOME_TABLE, $sql_ary);</pre>
0875 </div>
0876
0877 <h4>sql_in_set():</h4>
0878
0879 <p>The <code>$db->sql_in_set()</code> function should be used for building <code>IN ()</code> and <code>NOT IN ()</code> constructs. Since (specifically) MySQL tend to be faster if for one value to be compared the <code>=</code> and <code><></code> operator is used, we let the DBAL decide what to do. A typical example of doing a positive match against a number of values would be:</p>
0880
0881 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0882 $sql = 'SELECT *
0883 FROM ' . FORUMS_TABLE . '
0884 WHERE ' . $db->sql_in_set('forum_id', $forum_ids);
0885 $db->sql_query($sql);</pre>
0886 </div>
0887
0888 <p>Based on the number of values in $forum_ids, the query can look differently.</p>
0889
0890 <p class="good">// SQL Statement if $forum_ids = array(1, 2, 3);</p>
0891
0892 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0893 SELECT FROM phpbb_forums WHERE forum_id IN (1, 2, 3)</pre>
0894 </div>
0895
0896 <p class="good">// SQL Statement if $forum_ids = array(1) or $forum_ids = 1</p>
0897
0898 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0899 SELECT FROM phpbb_forums WHERE forum_id = 1</pre>
0900 </div>
0901
0902 <p>Of course the same is possible for doing a negative match against a number of values:</p>
0903
0904 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0905 $sql = 'SELECT *
0906 FROM ' . FORUMS_TABLE . '
0907 WHERE ' . $db->sql_in_set('forum_id', $forum_ids, <strong>true</strong>);
0908 $db->sql_query($sql);</pre>
0909 </div>
0910
0911 <p>Based on the number of values in $forum_ids, the query can look differently here too.</p>
0912
0913 <p class="good">// SQL Statement if $forum_ids = array(1, 2, 3);</p>
0914
0915 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0916 SELECT FROM phpbb_forums WHERE forum_id <strong>NOT</strong> IN (1, 2, 3)</pre>
0917 </div>
0918
0919 <p class="good">// SQL Statement if $forum_ids = array(1) or $forum_ids = 1</p>
0920
0921 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0922 SELECT FROM phpbb_forums WHERE forum_id <strong><></strong> 1</pre>
0923 </div>
0924
0925 <p>If the given array is empty, an error will be produced.</p>
0926
0927 <h4>sql_build_query():</h4>
0928
0929 <p>The <code>$db->sql_build_query()</code> function is responsible for building sql statements for SELECT and SELECT DISTINCT queries if you need to JOIN on more than one table or retrieve data from more than one table while doing a JOIN. This needs to be used to make sure the resulting statement is working on all supported db's. Instead of explaining every possible combination, I will give a short example:</p>
0930
0931 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0932 $sql_array = array(
0933 'SELECT' => 'f.*, ft.mark_time',
0934
0935 'FROM' => array(
0936 FORUMS_WATCH_TABLE => 'fw',
0937 FORUMS_TABLE => 'f',
0938 ),
0939
0940 'LEFT_JOIN' => array(
0941 array(
0942 'FROM' => array(FORUMS_TRACK_TABLE => 'ft'),
0943 'ON' => 'ft.user_id = ' . $user->data['user_id'] . ' AND ft.forum_id = f.forum_id',
0944 ),
0945 ),
0946
0947 'WHERE' => 'fw.user_id = ' . $user->data['user_id'] . '
0948 AND f.forum_id = fw.forum_id',
0949
0950 'ORDER_BY' => 'left_id',
0951 );
0952
0953 $sql = $db->sql_build_query('SELECT', $sql_array);</pre>
0954 </div>
0955
0956 <p>The possible first parameter for sql_build_query() is SELECT or SELECT_DISTINCT. As you can see, the logic is pretty self-explaining. For the LEFT_JOIN key, just add another array if you want to join on to tables for example. The added benefit of using this construct is that you are able to easily build the query statement based on conditions - for example the above LEFT_JOIN is only necessary if server side topic tracking is enabled; a slight adjustement would be:</p>
0957
0958 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0959 $sql_array = array(
0960 'SELECT' => 'f.*',
0961
0962 'FROM' => array(
0963 FORUMS_WATCH_TABLE => 'fw',
0964 FORUMS_TABLE => 'f',
0965 ),
0966
0967 'WHERE' => 'fw.user_id = ' . $user->data['user_id'] . '
0968 AND f.forum_id = fw.forum_id',
0969
0970 'ORDER_BY' => 'left_id',
0971 );
0972
0973 if ($config['load_db_lastread'])
0974 {
0975 $sql_array['LEFT_JOIN'] = array(
0976 array(
0977 'FROM' => array(FORUMS_TRACK_TABLE => 'ft'),
0978 'ON' => 'ft.user_id = ' . $user->data['user_id'] . ' AND ft.forum_id = f.forum_id',
0979 ),
0980 );
0981
0982 $sql_array['SELECT'] .= ', ft.mark_time ';
0983 }
0984 else
0985 {
0986 // Here we read the cookie data
0987 }
0988
0989 $sql = $db->sql_build_query('SELECT', $sql_array);</pre>
0990 </div>
0991
0992 <a name="optimizing"></a><h3>2.iv. Optimizations</h3>
0993
0994 <h4>Operations in loop definition: </h4>
0995 <p>Always try to optimize your loops if operations are going on at the comparing part, since this part is executed every time the loop is parsed through. For assignments a descriptive name should be chosen. Example:</p>
0996
0997 <p class="bad">// On every iteration the sizeof function is called</p>
0998 <div class="codebox"><pre>
0999 for ($i = 0; $i < sizeof($post_data); $i++)
1000 {
1001 do_something();
1002 }</pre>
1003 </div>
1004
1005 <p class="good">// You are able to assign the (not changing) result within the loop itself</p>
1006 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1007 for ($i = 0, $size = sizeof($post_data); $i < $size; $i++)
1008 {
1009 do_something();
1010 }</pre>
1011 </div>
1012
1013 <h4>Use of in_array(): </h4>
1014 <p>Try to avoid using in_array() on huge arrays, and try to not place them into loops if the array to check consist of more than 20 entries. in_array() can be very time consuming and uses a lot of cpu processing time. For little checks it is not noticeable, but if checked against a huge array within a loop those checks alone can take several seconds. If you need this functionality, try using isset() on the arrays keys instead, actually shifting the values into keys and vice versa. A call to <code>isset($array[$var])</code> is a lot faster than <code>in_array($var, array_keys($array))</code> for example.</p>
1015
1016
1017 <a name="general"></a><h3>2.v. General Guidelines</h3>
1018
1019 <h4>General things:</h4>
1020 <p>Never trust user input (this also applies to server variables as well as cookies).</p>
1021 <p>Try to sanitize values returned from a function.</p>
1022 <p>Try to sanitize given function variables within your function.</p>
1023 <p>The auth class should be used for all authorisation checking.</p>
1024 <p>No attempt should be made to remove any copyright information (either contained within the source or displayed interactively when the source is run/compiled), neither should the copyright information be altered in any way (it may be added to).</p>
1025
1026 <h4>Variables: </h4>
1027 <p>Make use of the <code>\phpbb\request\request</code> class for everything.</p>
1028 <p>The $request->variable() method determines the type to set from the second parameter (which determines the default value too). If you need to get a scalar variable type, you need to tell this the variable() method explicitly. Examples:</p>
1029
1030 <p class="bad">// Old method, do not use it</p>
1031 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1032 $start = (isset($HTTP_GET_VARS['start'])) ? intval($HTTP_GET_VARS['start']) : intval($HTTP_POST_VARS['start']);
1033 $submit = (isset($HTTP_POST_VARS['submit'])) ? true : false;</pre>
1034 </div>
1035
1036 <p class="good">// Use request var and define a default variable (use the correct type)</p>
1037 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1038 $start = $request->variable('start', 0);
1039 $submit = $request->is_set_post('submit');</pre>
1040 </div>
1041
1042 <p class="bad">// $start is an int, the following use of $request->variable() therefore is not allowed</p>
1043 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1044 $start = $request->variable('start', '0');</pre>
1045 </div>
1046
1047 <p class="good">// Getting an array, keys are integers, value defaults to 0</p>
1048 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1049 $mark_array = $request->variable('mark', array(0));</pre>
1050 </div>
1051
1052 <p class="good">// Getting an array, keys are strings, value defaults to 0</p>
1053 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1054 $action_ary = $request->variable('action', array('' => 0));</pre>
1055 </div>
1056
1057 <h4>Login checks/redirection: </h4>
1058 <p>To show a forum login box use <code>login_forum_box($forum_data)</code>, else use the <code>login_box()</code> function.</p>
1059
1060 <p><code>$forum_data</code> should contain at least the <code>forum_id</code> and <code>forum_password</code> fields. If the field <code>forum_name</code> is available, then it is displayed on the forum login page.</p>
1061
1062 <p>The <code>login_box()</code> function can have a redirect as the first parameter. As a thumb of rule, specify an empty string if you want to redirect to the users current location, else do not add the <code>$SID</code> to the redirect string (for example within the ucp/login we redirect to the board index because else the user would be redirected to the login screen).</p>
1063
1064 <h4>Sensitive Operations: </h4>
1065 <p>For sensitive operations always let the user confirm the action. For the confirmation screens, make use of the <code>confirm_box()</code> function.</p>
1066
1067 <h4>Altering Operations: </h4>
1068 <p>For operations altering the state of the database, for instance posting, always verify the form token, unless you are already using <code>confirm_box()</code>. To do so, make use of the <code>add_form_key()</code> and <code>check_form_key()</code> functions. </p>
1069 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1070 add_form_key('my_form');
1071
1072 if ($submit)
1073 {
1074 if (!check_form_key('my_form'))
1075 {
1076 trigger_error('FORM_INVALID');
1077 }
1078 }</pre>
1079 </div>
1080
1081 <p>The string passed to <code>add_form_key()</code> needs to match the string passed to <code>check_form_key()</code>. Another requirement for this to work correctly is that all forms include the <code>{S_FORM_TOKEN}</code> template variable.</p>
1082
1083
1084 <h4>Sessions: </h4>
1085 <p>Sessions should be initiated on each page, as near the top as possible using the following code:</p>
1086
1087 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1088 $user->session_begin();
1089 $auth->acl($user->data);
1090 $user->setup();</pre>
1091 </div>
1092
1093 <p>The <code>$user->setup()</code> call can be used to pass on additional language definition and a custom style (used in viewforum).</p>
1094
1095 <h4>Errors and messages: </h4>
1096 <p>All messages/errors should be outputted by calling <code>trigger_error()</code> using the appropriate message type and language string. Example:</p>
1097
1098 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1099 trigger_error('NO_FORUM');</pre>
1100 </div>
1101
1102 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1103 trigger_error($user->lang['NO_FORUM']);</pre>
1104 </div>
1105
1106 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1107 trigger_error('NO_MODE', E_USER_ERROR);</pre>
1108 </div>
1109
1110 <h4>Url formatting</h4>
1111
1112 <p>All urls pointing to internal files need to be prepended by the <code>$phpbb_root_path</code> variable. Within the administration control panel all urls pointing to internal files need to be prepended by the <code>$phpbb_admin_path</code> variable. This makes sure the path is always correct and users being able to just rename the admin folder and the acp still working as intended (though some links will fail and the code need to be slightly adjusted).</p>
1113
1114 <p>The <code>append_sid()</code> function from 2.0.x is available too, though it does not handle url alterations automatically. Please have a look at the code documentation if you want to get more details on how to use append_sid(). A sample call to append_sid() can look like this:</p>
1115
1116 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1117 append_sid("{$phpbb_root_path}memberlist.$phpEx", 'mode=group&amp;g=' . $row['group_id'])</pre>
1118 </div>
1119
1120 <h4>General function usage: </h4>
1121
1122 <p>Some of these functions are only chosen over others because of personal preference and have no benefit other than maintaining consistency throughout the code.</p>
1123
1124 <ul>
1125 <li>
1126 <p>Use <code>strpos</code> instead of <code>strstr</code></p>
1127 </li>
1128 <li>
1129 <p>Use <code>else if</code> instead of <code>elseif</code></p>
1130 </li>
1131 <li>
1132 <p>Use <code>false</code> (lowercase) instead of <code>FALSE</code></p>
1133 </li>
1134 <li>
1135 <p>Use <code>true</code> (lowercase) instead of <code>TRUE</code></p>
1136 </li>
1137 </ul>
1138
1139 <h4>Exiting</h4>
1140
1141 <p>Your page should either call <code>page_footer()</code> in the end to trigger output through the template engine and terminate the script, or alternatively at least call the <code>exit_handler()</code>. That call is necessary because it provides a method for external applications embedding phpBB to be called at the end of the script.</p>
1142
1143 <a name="phprestrictions"></a><h3>2.vi. Restrictions on the Use of PHP</h3>
1144
1145 <h4>Dynamic code execution:</h4>
1146
1147 <p>Never execute dynamic PHP code (generated or in a constant string) using any of the following PHP functions:</p>
1148
1149 <ul>
1150 <li><strong>eval</strong></li>
1151 <li><strong>create_function</strong></li>
1152 <li><strong>preg_replace</strong> with the <strong>e</strong> modifier in the pattern</li>
1153 </ul>
1154
1155 <p>If absolutely necessary a file should be created, and a mechanism for creating this file prior to running phpBB should be provided as a setup process.</p>
1156
1157 <p>The <strong>e</strong> modifier in <strong>preg_replace</strong> can be replaced by <strong>preg_replace_callback</strong> and objects to encapsulate state that is needed in the callback code.</p>
1158
1159 <h4>Other functions, operators, statements and keywords:</h4>
1160
1161 <p>The following PHP statements should also not be used in phpBB:</p>
1162
1163 <ul>
1164 <li><strong>goto</strong></li>
1165 </ul>
1166
1167 </div>
1168
1169 <div class="back2top"><a href="#wrap" class="top">Back to Top</a></div>
1170
1171 </div>
1172 </div>
1173
1174 <hr />
1175
1176 <a name="styling"></a><h2>3. Styling</h2>
1177 <div class="paragraph">
1178 <div class="inner">
1179
1180 <div class="content">
1181 <a name="cfgfiles"></a><h3>3.i. Style Config Files</h3>
1182 <p>Style cfg files are simple name-value lists with the information necessary for installing a style. The important part of the style configuration file is assigning an unique name.</p>
1183 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1184 # General Information about this style
1185 name = prosilver_duplicate
1186 copyright = © phpBB Limited, 2007
1187 style_version = 3.2.0
1188 phpbb_version = 3.2.0
1189
1190 # Defining a different template bitfield
1191 # template_bitfield = lNg=
1192
1193 # Parent style
1194 # Set value to empty or to this style's name if this style does not have a parent style
1195 parent = prosilver</pre>
1196 </div>
1197 <a name="genstyling"></a><h3>3.2. General Styling Rules</h3>
1198 <p>Templates should be produced in a consistent manner. Where appropriate they should be based off an existing copy, e.g. index, viewforum or viewtopic (the combination of which implement a range of conditional and variable forms). Please also note that the indentation and coding guidelines also apply to templates where possible.</p>
1199
1200 <p>The outer table class <code>forumline</code> has gone and is replaced with <code>tablebg</code>.</p>
1201 <p>When writing <code><table></code> the order <code><table class="" cellspacing="" cellpadding="" border="" align=""></code> creates consistency and allows everyone to easily see which table produces which "look". The same applies to most other tags for which additional parameters can be set, consistency is the major aim here.</p>
1202 <p>Each block level element should be indented by one tab, same for tabular elements, e.g. <code><tr></code> <code><td></code> etc., whereby the intendiation of <code><table></code> and the following/ending <code><tr></code> should be on the same line. This applies not to div elements of course.</p>
1203 <p>Don't use <code><span></code> more than is essential ... the CSS is such that text sizes are dependent on the parent class. So writing <code><span class="gensmall"><span class="gensmall">TEST</span></span></code> will result in very very small text. Similarly don't use span at all if another element can contain the class definition, e.g.</p>
1204
1205 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1206 <td><span class="gensmall">TEST</span></td>
1207 </pre></div>
1208
1209 <p>can just as well become:</p>
1210 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1211 <td class="gensmall">TEST</td>
1212 </pre></div>
1213
1214 <p>Try to match text class types with existing useage, e.g. don't use the nav class where viewtopic uses gensmall for example.</p>
1215
1216 <p>Row colours/classes are now defined by the template, use an <code>IF S_ROW_COUNT</code> switch, see viewtopic or viewforum for an example.</p>
1217
1218 <p>Remember block level ordering is important.</p>
1219
1220 <p>Use a standard cellpadding of 2 and cellspacing of 0 on outer tables. Inner tables can vary from 0 to 3 or even 4 depending on the need.</p>
1221
1222 <p><strong>Use div container/css for styling and table for data representation.</strong></p>
1223
1224 <p>The separate catXXXX and thXXX classes are gone. When defining a header cell just use <code><th></code> rather than <code><th class="thHead"></code> etc. Similarly for cat, don't use <code><td class="catLeft"></code> use <code><td class="cat"></code> etc.</p>
1225
1226 <p>Try to retain consistency of basic layout and class useage, i.e. _EXPLAIN text should generally be placed below the title it explains, e.g. <code>{L_POST_USERNAME}<br /><span class="gensmall">{L_POST_USERNAME_EXPLAIN}</span></code> is the typical way of handling this ... there may be exceptions and this isn't a hard and fast rule.</p>
1227
1228 <p>Try to keep template conditional and other statements tabbed in line with the block to which they refer.</p>
1229
1230 <p class="good">this is correct</p>
1231 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1232 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN test --></span>
1233 <tr>
1234 <td>{test.TEXT}</td>
1235 </tr>
1236 <span class="comment"><!-- END test --></span>
1237 </pre></div>
1238
1239 <p class="good">this is also correct:</p>
1240 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1241 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN test --></span>
1242 <tr>
1243 <td>{test.TEXT}</td>
1244 </tr>
1245 <span class="comment"><!-- END test --></span>
1246 </pre></div>
1247
1248 <p>it gives immediate feedback on exactly what is looping - decide which way to use based on the readability.</p>
1249
1250 </div>
1251
1252 <div class="back2top"><a href="#wrap" class="top">Back to Top</a></div>
1253
1254 </div>
1255 </div>
1256
1257 <hr />
1258
1259 <a name="templating"></a><h2>4. Templating</h2>
1260 <div class="paragraph">
1261 <div class="inner">
1262
1263 <div class="content">
1264 <a name="templates"></a><h3>4.i. General Templating</h3>
1265
1266 <h4>File naming</h4>
1267 <p>Firstly templates now take the suffix ".html" rather than ".tpl". This was done simply to make the lives of some people easier wrt syntax highlighting, etc.</p>
1268
1269 <h4>Variables</h4>
1270 <p>All template variables should be named appropriately (using underscores for spaces), language entries should be prefixed with L_, system data with S_, urls with U_, javascript urls with UA_, language to be put in javascript statements with LA_, all other variables should be presented 'as is'.</p>
1271
1272 <p>L_* template variables are automatically mapped to the corresponding language entry if the code does not set (and therefore overwrite) this variable specifically and if the language entry exists. For example <code>{L_USERNAME}</code> maps to <code>$user->lang['USERNAME']</code>. The LA_* template variables are handled within the same way, but properly escaped so they can be put in javascript code. This should reduce the need to assign loads of new language variables in MODifications.
1273 </p>
1274
1275 <h4>Blocks/Loops</h4>
1276 <p>The basic block level loop remains and takes the form:</p>
1277 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1278 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN loopname --></span>
1279 markup, {loopname.X_YYYYY}, etc.
1280 <span class="comment"><!-- END loopname --></span>
1281 </pre></div>
1282
1283 <p>A bit later loops will be explained further. To not irritate you we will explain conditionals as well as other statements first.</p>
1284
1285 <h4>Including files</h4>
1286 <p>Something that existed in 2.0.x which no longer exists in 3.x is the ability to assign a template to a variable. This was used (for example) to output the jumpbox. Instead (perhaps better, perhaps not but certainly more flexible) we now have INCLUDE. This takes the simple form:</p>
1287
1288 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1289 <span class="comment"><!-- INCLUDE filename --></span>
1290 </pre></div>
1291
1292 <p>You will note in the 3.x templates the major sources start with <code><!-- INCLUDE overall_header.html --></code> or <code><!-- INCLUDE simple_header.html --></code>, etc. In 2.0.x control of "which" header to use was defined entirely within the code. In 3.x the template designer can output what they like. Note that you can introduce new templates (i.e. other than those in the default set) using this system and include them as you wish ... perhaps useful for a common "menu" bar or some such. No need to modify loads of files as with 2.0.x.</p>
1293
1294 <p>Added in <strong>3.0.6</strong> is the ability to include a file using a template variable to specify the file, this functionality only works for root variables (i.e. not block variables).</p>
1295 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1296 <span class="comment"><!-- INCLUDE {FILE_VAR} --></span>
1297 </pre></div>
1298
1299 <p>Template defined variables can also be utilised.</p>
1300
1301 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1302 <span class="comment"><!-- DEFINE $SOME_VAR = 'my_file.html' --></span>
1303 <span class="comment"><!-- INCLUDE {$SOME_VAR} --></span>
1304 </pre></div>
1305
1306 <h4>PHP</h4>
1307 <p>A contentious decision has seen the ability to include PHP within the template introduced. This is achieved by enclosing the PHP within relevant tags:</p>
1308
1309 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1310 <span class="comment"><!-- PHP --></span>
1311 echo "hello!";
1312 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDPHP --></span>
1313 </pre></div>
1314
1315 <p>You may also include PHP from an external file using:</p>
1316
1317 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1318 <span class="comment"><!-- INCLUDEPHP somefile.php --></span>
1319 </pre></div>
1320
1321 <p>it will be included and executed inline.<br /><br />A note, it is very much encouraged that template designers do not include PHP. The ability to include raw PHP was introduced primarily to allow end users to include banner code, etc. without modifying multiple files (as with 2.0.x). It was not intended for general use ... hence <!-- w --><a href="https://www.phpbb.com">www.phpbb.com</a><!-- w --> will <strong>not</strong> make available template sets which include PHP. And by default templates will have PHP disabled (the admin will need to specifically activate PHP for a template).</p>
1322
1323 <h4>Conditionals/Control structures</h4>
1324 <p>The most significant addition to 3.x are conditions or control structures, "if something then do this else do that". The system deployed is very similar to Smarty. This may confuse some people at first but it offers great potential and great flexibility with a little imagination. In their most simple form these constructs take the form:</p>
1325
1326 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1327 <span class="comment"><!-- IF expr --></span>
1328 markup
1329 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1330 </pre></div>
1331
1332 <p>expr can take many forms, for example:</p>
1333
1334 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1335 <span class="comment"><!-- IF loop.S_ROW_COUNT is even --></span>
1336 markup
1337 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1338 </pre></div>
1339
1340 <p>This will output the markup if the S_ROW_COUNT variable in the current iteration of loop is an even value (i.e. the expr is TRUE). You can use various comparison methods (standard as well as equivalent textual versions noted in square brackets) including (<code>not, or, and, eq, neq, is</code> should be used if possible for better readability):</p>
1341
1342 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1343 == [eq]
1344 != [neq, ne]
1345 <> (same as !=)
1346 !== (not equivalent in value and type)
1347 === (equivalent in value and type)
1348 > [gt]
1349 < [lt]
1350 >= [gte]
1351 <= [lte]
1352 && [and]
1353 || [or]
1354 % [mod]
1355 ! [not]
1356 +
1357 -
1358 *
1359 /
1360 ,
1361 << (bitwise shift left)
1362 >> (bitwise shift right)
1363 | (bitwise or)
1364 ^ (bitwise xor)
1365 & (bitwise and)
1366 ~ (bitwise not)
1367 is (can be used to join comparison operations)
1368 </pre></div>
1369
1370 <p>Basic parenthesis can also be used to enforce good old BODMAS rules. Additionally some basic comparison types are defined:</p>
1371
1372 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1373 even
1374 odd
1375 div
1376 </pre></div>
1377
1378 <p>Beyond the simple use of IF you can also do a sequence of comparisons using the following:</p>
1379
1380 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1381 <span class="comment"><!-- IF expr1 --></span>
1382 markup
1383 <span class="comment"><!-- ELSEIF expr2 --></span>
1384 markup
1385 .
1386 .
1387 .
1388 <span class="comment"><!-- ELSEIF exprN --></span>
1389 markup
1390 <span class="comment"><!-- ELSE --></span>
1391 markup
1392 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1393 </pre></div>
1394
1395 <p>Each statement will be tested in turn and the relevant output generated when a match (if a match) is found. It is not necessary to always use ELSEIF, ELSE can be used alone to match "everything else".<br /><br />So what can you do with all this? Well take for example the colouration of rows in viewforum. In 2.0.x row colours were predefined within the source as either row color1, row color2 or row class1, row class2. In 3.x this is moved to the template, it may look a little daunting at first but remember control flows from top to bottom and it's not too difficult:</p>
1396
1397 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1398 <table>
1399 <span class="comment"><!-- IF loop.S_ROW_COUNT is even --></span>
1400 <tr class="row1">
1401 <span class="comment"><!-- ELSE --></span>
1402 <tr class="row2">
1403 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1404 <td>HELLO!</td>
1405 </tr>
1406 </table>
1407 </pre></div>
1408
1409 <p>This will cause the row cell to be output using class row1 when the row count is even, and class row2 otherwise. The S_ROW_COUNT parameter gets assigned to loops by default. Another example would be the following: </p>
1410
1411 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1412 <table>
1413 <span class="comment"><!-- IF loop.S_ROW_COUNT > 10 --></span>
1414 <tr bgcolor="#FF0000">
1415 <span class="comment"><!-- ELSEIF loop.S_ROW_COUNT > 5 --></span>
1416 <tr bgcolor="#00FF00">
1417 <span class="comment"><!-- ELSEIF loop.S_ROW_COUNT > 2 --></span>
1418 <tr bgcolor="#0000FF">
1419 <span class="comment"><!-- ELSE --></span>
1420 <tr bgcolor="#FF00FF">
1421 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1422 <td>hello!</td>
1423 </tr>
1424 </table>
1425 </pre></div>
1426
1427 <p>This will output the row cell in purple for the first two rows, blue for rows 2 to 5, green for rows 5 to 10 and red for remainder. So, you could produce a "nice" gradient effect, for example.<br /><br />What else can you do? Well, you could use IF to do common checks on for example the login state of a user:</p>
1428
1429 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1430 <span class="comment"><!-- IF S_USER_LOGGED_IN --></span>
1431 markup
1432 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1433 </pre></div>
1434
1435 <p>This replaces the existing (fudged) method in 2.0.x using a zero length array and BEGIN/END.</p>
1436
1437 <h4>Extended syntax for Blocks/Loops</h4>
1438
1439 <p>Back to our loops - they had been extended with the following additions. Firstly you can set the start and end points of the loop. For example:</p>
1440
1441 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1442 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN loopname(2) --></span>
1443 markup
1444 <span class="comment"><!-- END loopname --></span>
1445 </pre></div>
1446
1447 <p>Will start the loop on the third entry (note that indexes start at zero). Extensions of this are:
1448 <br /><br />
1449 <code>loopname(2)</code>: Will start the loop on the 3rd entry<br />
1450 <code>loopname(-2)</code>: Will start the loop two entries from the end<br />
1451 <code>loopname(3,4)</code>: Will start the loop on the fourth entry and end it on the fifth<br />
1452 <code>loopname(3,-4)</code>: Will start the loop on the fourth entry and end it four from last<br />
1453 </p>
1454
1455 <p>A further extension to begin is BEGINELSE:</p>
1456
1457 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1458 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN loop --></span>
1459 markup
1460 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGINELSE --></span>
1461 markup
1462 <span class="comment"><!-- END loop --></span>
1463 </pre></div>
1464
1465 <p>This will cause the markup between <code>BEGINELSE</code> and <code>END</code> to be output if the loop contains no values. This is useful for forums with no topics (for example) ... in some ways it replaces "bits of" the existing "switch_" type control (the rest being replaced by conditionals).</p>
1466
1467 <p>Another way of checking if a loop contains values is by prefixing the loops name with a dot:</p>
1468
1469 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1470 <span class="comment"><!-- IF .loop --></span>
1471 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN loop --></span>
1472 markup
1473 <span class="comment"><!-- END loop --></span>
1474 <span class="comment"><!-- ELSE --></span>
1475 markup
1476 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1477 </pre></div>
1478
1479 <p>You are even able to check the number of items within a loop by comparing it with values within the IF condition:</p>
1480
1481 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1482 <span class="comment"><!-- IF .loop > 2 --></span>
1483 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN loop --></span>
1484 markup
1485 <span class="comment"><!-- END loop --></span>
1486 <span class="comment"><!-- ELSE --></span>
1487 markup
1488 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1489 </pre></div>
1490
1491 <p>Nesting loops cause the conditionals needing prefixed with all loops from the outer one to the inner most. An illustration of this:</p>
1492
1493 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1494 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN firstloop --></span>
1495 {firstloop.MY_VARIABLE_FROM_FIRSTLOOP}
1496
1497 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN secondloop --></span>
1498 {firstloop.secondloop.MY_VARIABLE_FROM_SECONDLOOP}
1499 <span class="comment"><!-- END secondloop --></span>
1500 <span class="comment"><!-- END firstloop --></span>
1501 </pre></div>
1502
1503 <p>Sometimes it is necessary to break out of nested loops to be able to call another loop within the current iteration. This sounds a little bit confusing and it is not used very often. The following (rather complex) example shows this quite good - it also shows how you test for the first and last row in a loop (i will explain the example in detail further down):</p>
1504
1505 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1506 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN l_block1 --></span>
1507 <span class="comment"><!-- IF l_block1.S_SELECTED --></span>
1508 <strong>{l_block1.L_TITLE}</strong>
1509 <span class="comment"><!-- IF S_PRIVMSGS --></span>
1510
1511 <span class="comment"><!-- the ! at the beginning of the loop name forces the loop to be not a nested one of l_block1 --></span>
1512 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN !folder --></span>
1513 <span class="comment"><!-- IF folder.S_FIRST_ROW --></span>
1514 <ul class="nav">
1515 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1516
1517 <li><a href="{folder.U_FOLDER}">{folder.FOLDER_NAME}</a></li>
1518
1519 <span class="comment"><!-- IF folder.S_LAST_ROW --></span>
1520 </ul>
1521 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1522 <span class="comment"><!-- END !folder --></span>
1523
1524 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1525
1526 <ul class="nav">
1527 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN l_block2 --></span>
1528 <li>
1529 <span class="comment"><!-- IF l_block1.l_block2.S_SELECTED --></span>
1530 <strong>{l_block1.l_block2.L_TITLE}</strong>
1531 <span class="comment"><!-- ELSE --></span>
1532 <a href="{l_block1.l_block2.U_TITLE}">{l_block1.l_block2.L_TITLE}</a>
1533 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1534 </li>
1535 <span class="comment"><!-- END l_block2 --></span>
1536 </ul>
1537 <span class="comment"><!-- ELSE --></span>
1538 <a class="nav" href="{l_block1.U_TITLE}">{l_block1.L_TITLE}</a>
1539 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1540 <span class="comment"><!-- END l_block1 --></span>
1541 </pre></div>
1542
1543 <p>Let us first concentrate on this part of the example:</p>
1544
1545 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1546 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN l_block1 --></span>
1547 <span class="comment"><!-- IF l_block1.S_SELECTED --></span>
1548 markup
1549 <span class="comment"><!-- ELSE --></span>
1550 <a class="nav" href="{l_block1.U_TITLE}">{l_block1.L_TITLE}</a>
1551 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1552 <span class="comment"><!-- END l_block1 --></span>
1553 </pre></div>
1554
1555 <p>Here we open the loop l_block1 and do some things if the value S_SELECTED within the current loop iteration is true, else we write the blocks link and title. Here, you see <code>{l_block1.L_TITLE}</code> referenced - you remember that L_* variables get automatically assigned the corresponding language entry? This is true, but not within loops. The L_TITLE variable within the loop l_block1 is assigned within the code itself.</p>
1556
1557 <p>Let's have a closer look at the markup:</p>
1558
1559 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1560 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN l_block1 --></span>
1561 .
1562 .
1563 <span class="comment"><!-- IF S_PRIVMSGS --></span>
1564
1565 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN !folder --></span>
1566 <span class="comment"><!-- IF folder.S_FIRST_ROW --></span>
1567 <ul class="nav">
1568 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1569
1570 <li><a href="{folder.U_FOLDER}">{folder.FOLDER_NAME}</a></li>
1571
1572 <span class="comment"><!-- IF folder.S_LAST_ROW --></span>
1573 </ul>
1574 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1575 <span class="comment"><!-- END !folder --></span>
1576
1577 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1578 .
1579 .
1580 <span class="comment"><!-- END l_block1 --></span>
1581 </pre></div>
1582
1583 <p>The <code><!-- IF S_PRIVMSGS --></code> statement clearly checks a global variable and not one within the loop, since the loop is not given here. So, if S_PRIVMSGS is true we execute the shown markup. Now, you see the <code><!-- BEGIN !folder --></code> statement. The exclamation mark is responsible for instructing the template engine to iterate through the main loop folder. So, we are now within the loop folder - with <code><!-- BEGIN folder --></code> we would have been within the loop <code>l_block1.folder</code> automatically as is the case with l_block2:</p>
1584
1585 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1586 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN l_block1 --></span>
1587 .
1588 .
1589 <ul class="nav">
1590 <span class="comment"><!-- BEGIN l_block2 --></span>
1591 <li>
1592 <span class="comment"><!-- IF l_block1.l_block2.S_SELECTED --></span>
1593 <strong>{l_block1.l_block2.L_TITLE}</strong>
1594 <span class="comment"><!-- ELSE --></span>
1595 <a href="{l_block1.l_block2.U_TITLE}">{l_block1.l_block2.L_TITLE}</a>
1596 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1597 </li>
1598 <span class="comment"><!-- END l_block2 --></span>
1599 </ul>
1600 .
1601 .
1602 <span class="comment"><!-- END l_block1 --></span>
1603 </pre></div>
1604
1605 <p>You see the difference? The loop l_block2 is a member of the loop l_block1 but the loop folder is a main loop.</p>
1606
1607 <p>Now back to our folder loop:</p>
1608
1609 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1610 <span class="comment"><!-- IF folder.S_FIRST_ROW --></span>
1611 <ul class="nav">
1612 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1613
1614 <li><a href="{folder.U_FOLDER}">{folder.FOLDER_NAME}</a></li>
1615
1616 <span class="comment"><!-- IF folder.S_LAST_ROW --></span>
1617 </ul>
1618 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1619 </pre></div>
1620
1621 <p>You may have wondered what the comparison to S_FIRST_ROW and S_LAST_ROW is about. If you haven't guessed already - it is checking for the first iteration of the loop with <code>S_FIRST_ROW</code> and the last iteration with <code>S_LAST_ROW</code>. This can come in handy quite often if you want to open or close design elements, like the above list. Let us imagine a folder loop build with three iterations, it would go this way:</p>
1622
1623 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1624 <ul class="nav"> <span class="comment"><!-- written on first iteration --></span>
1625 <li>first element</li> <span class="comment"><!-- written on first iteration --></span>
1626 <li>second element</li> <span class="comment"><!-- written on second iteration --></span>
1627 <li>third element</li> <span class="comment"><!-- written on third iteration --></span>
1628 </ul> <span class="comment"><!-- written on third iteration --></span>
1629 </pre></div>
1630
1631 <p>As you can see, all three elements are written down as well as the markup for the first iteration and the last one. Sometimes you want to omit writing the general markup - for example:</p>
1632
1633 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1634 <span class="comment"><!-- IF folder.S_FIRST_ROW --></span>
1635 <ul class="nav">
1636 <span class="comment"><!-- ELSEIF folder.S_LAST_ROW --></span>
1637 </ul>
1638 <span class="comment"><!-- ELSE --></span>
1639 <li><a href="{folder.U_FOLDER}">{folder.FOLDER_NAME}</a></li>
1640 <span class="comment"><!-- ENDIF --></span>
1641 </pre></div>
1642
1643 <p>would result in the following markup:</p>
1644
1645 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1646 <ul class="nav"> <span class="comment"><!-- written on first iteration --></span>
1647 <li>second element</li> <span class="comment"><!-- written on second iteration --></span>
1648 </ul> <span class="comment"><!-- written on third iteration --></span>
1649 </pre></div>
1650
1651 <p>Just always remember that processing is taking place from top to bottom.</p>
1652
1653 <h4>Forms</h4>
1654 <p>If a form is used for a non-trivial operation (i.e. more than a jumpbox), then it should include the <code>{S_FORM_TOKEN}</code> template variable.</p>
1655 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1656 <form method="post" id="mcp" action="{U_POST_ACTION}">
1657
1658 <fieldset class="submit-buttons">
1659 <input type="reset" value="{L_RESET}" name="reset" class="button2" />
1660 <input type="submit" name="action[add_warning]" value="{L_SUBMIT}" class="button1" />
1661 {S_FORM_TOKEN}
1662 </fieldset>
1663 </form>
1664 </pre></div><br />
1665
1666 <a name="stylestree"></a><h3>4.ii. Styles Tree</h3>
1667 <p>When basing a new style on an existing one, it is not necessary to provide all the template files. By declaring the base style name in the <strong>parent</strong> field in the style configuration file, the style can be set to reuse template files from the parent style.</p>
1668
1669 <p>The effect of doing so is that the template engine will use the template files in the new style where they exist, but fall back to files in the parent style otherwise.</p>
1670
1671 <p>We strongly encourage the use of parent styles for styles based on the bundled styles, as it will ease the update procedure.</p>
1672
1673 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1674 # General Information about this style
1675 name = Custom Style
1676 copyright = © phpBB Limited, 2007
1677 style_version = 3.2.0-b1
1678 phpbb_version = 3.2.0-b1
1679
1680 # Defining a different template bitfield
1681 # template_bitfield = lNg=
1682
1683 # Parent style
1684 # Set value to empty or to this style's name if this style does not have a parent style
1685 parent = prosilver
1686 </pre></div>
1687
1688 <a name="template-events"></a><h3>4.iii. Template Events</h3>
1689 <p>Template events must follow this format: <code><!-- EVENT event_name --></code></p>
1690 <p>Using the above example, files named <code>event_name.html</code> located within extensions will be injected into the location of the event.</p>
1691
1692 <h4>Template event naming guidelines:</h4>
1693 <ul>
1694 <li>An event name must be all lowercase, with each word separated by an underscore.</li>
1695 <li>An event name must briefly describe the location and purpose of the event.</li>
1696 <li>
1697 An event name must end with one of the following suffixes:
1698 <ul>
1699 <li><code>_prepend</code> - This event adds an item to the beginning of a block of related items, or adds to the beginning of individual items in a block.</li>
1700 <li><code>_append</code> - This event adds an item to the end of a block of related items, or adds to the end of individual items in a block.</li>
1701 <li><code>_before</code> - This event adds content directly before the specified block</li>
1702 <li><code>_after</code> - This event adds content directly after the specified block</li>
1703 </ul>
1704 </li>
1705 </ul>
1706
1707 <h4>Template event documentation</h4>
1708 <p>Events must be documented in <code>phpBB/docs/events.md</code> in alphabetical order based on the event name. The format is as follows:</p>
1709
1710 <ul><li>An event found in only one template file:
1711 <div class="codebox"><pre>event_name
1712 ===
1713 * Location: styles/<style_name>/template/filename.html
1714 * Purpose: A brief description of what this event should be used for.
1715 This may span multiple lines.
1716 * Since: Version since when the event was added
1717 </pre></div></li>
1718 <li>An event found in multiple template files:
1719 <div class="codebox"><pre>event_name
1720 ===
1721 * Locations:
1722 + first/file/path.html
1723 + second/file/path.html
1724 * Purpose: Same as above.
1725 * Since: 3.2.0-b1
1726 </pre></div>
1727 <li>An event that is found multiple times in a file should have the number of instances in parenthesis next to the filename.
1728 <div class="codebox"><pre>event_name
1729 ===
1730 * Locations:
1731 + first/file/path.html (2)
1732 + second/file/path.html
1733 * Purpose: Same as above.
1734 * Since: 3.2.0-b1
1735 </pre></div></li>
1736 <li>An actual example event documentation:
1737 <div class="codebox"><pre>forumlist_body_last_post_title_prepend
1738 ====
1739 * Locations:
1740 + styles/prosilver/template/forumlist_body.html
1741 + styles/subsilver2/template/forumlist_body.html
1742 * Purpose: Add content before the post title of the latest post in a forum on the forum list.
1743 * Since: 3.2.0-a1
1744 </pre></div></ul><br />
1745
1746 </div>
1747
1748 <div class="back2top"><a href="#wrap" class="top">Back to Top</a></div>
1749
1750 </div>
1751 </div>
1752
1753 <hr />
1754
1755
1756
1757 <a name="charsets"></a><h2>5. Character Sets and Encodings</h2>
1758
1759 <div class="paragraph">
1760 <div class="inner">
1761
1762 <div class="content">
1763
1764
1765
1766 <h4>What are Unicode, UCS and UTF-8?</h4>
1767 <p>The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Character_Set">Universal Character Set (UCS)</a> described in ISO/IEC 10646 consists of a large amount of characters. Each of them has a unique name and a code point which is an integer number. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode">Unicode</a> - which is an industry standard - complements the Universal Character Set with further information about the characters' properties and alternative character encodings. More information on Unicode can be found on the <a href="http://www.unicode.org/">Unicode Consortium's website</a>. One of the Unicode encodings is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8">8-bit Unicode Transformation Format (UTF-8)</a>. It encodes characters with up to four bytes aiming for maximum compatibility with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII">American Standard Code for Information Interchange</a> which is a 7-bit encoding of a relatively small subset of the UCS.</p>
1768
1769 <h4>phpBB's use of Unicode</h4>
1770 <p>Unfortunately PHP does not faciliate the use of Unicode prior to version 6. Most functions simply treat strings as sequences of bytes assuming that each character takes up exactly one byte. This behaviour still allows for storing UTF-8 encoded text in PHP strings but many operations on strings have unexpected results. To circumvent this problem we have created some alternative functions to PHP's native string operations which use code points instead of bytes. These functions can be found in <code>/includes/utf/utf_tools.php</code>. They are also covered in the <a href="http://area51.phpbb.com/docs/code/">phpBB3 Sourcecode Documentation</a>. A lot of native PHP functions still work with UTF-8 as long as you stick to certain restrictions. For example <code>explode</code> still works as long as the first and the last character of the delimiter string are ASCII characters.</p>
1771
1772 <p>phpBB only uses the ASCII and the UTF-8 character encodings. Still all Strings are UTF-8 encoded because ASCII is a subset of UTF-8. The only exceptions to this rule are code sections which deal with external systems which use other encodings and character sets. Such external data should be converted to UTF-8 using the <code>utf8_recode()</code> function supplied with phpBB. It supports a variety of other character sets and encodings, a full list can be found below.</p>
1773
1774 <p>With <code>$request->variable()</code> you can either allow all UCS characters in user input or restrict user input to ASCII characters. This feature is controlled by the method's third parameter called <code>$multibyte</code>. You should allow multibyte characters in posts, PMs, topic titles, forum names, etc. but it's not necessary for internal uses like a <code>$mode</code> variable which should only hold a predefined list of ASCII strings anyway.</p>
1775
1776 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1777 // an input string containing a multibyte character
1778 $_REQUEST['multibyte_string'] = 'Käse';
1779
1780 // print request variable as a UTF-8 string allowing multibyte characters
1781 echo $request->variable('multibyte_string', '', true);
1782 // print request variable as ASCII string
1783 echo $request->variable('multibyte_string', '');
1784 </pre></div>
1785
1786 <p>This code snippet will generate the following output:</p>
1787
1788 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1789 Käse
1790 K??se
1791 </pre></div>
1792
1793 <h4>Case Folding</h4>
1794
1795 <p>Case insensitive comparison of strings is no longer possible with <code>strtolower</code> or <code>strtoupper</code> as some characters have multiple lower case or multiple upper case forms depending on their position in a word. The <code>utf8_strtolower</code> and the <code>utf8_strtoupper</code> functions suffer from the same problem so they can only be used to display upper/lower case versions of a string but they cannot be used for case insensitive comparisons either. So instead you should use case folding which gives you a case insensitive version of the string which can be used for case insensitive comparisons. An NFC normalized string can be case folded using <code>utf8_case_fold_nfc()</code>.</p>
1796
1797 <p class="bad">// Bad - The strings might be the same even if strtolower differs</p>
1798
1799 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1800 if (strtolower($string1) == strtolower($string2))
1801 {
1802 echo '$string1 and $string2 are equal or differ in case';
1803 }
1804 </pre></div>
1805
1806 <p class="good">// Good - Case folding is really case insensitive</p>
1807
1808 <div class="codebox"><pre>
1809 if (utf8_case_fold_nfc($string1) == utf8_case_fold_nfc($string2))
1810 {
1811 echo '$string1 and $string2 are equal or differ in case';
1812 }
1813 </pre></div>
1814
1815 <h4>Confusables Detection</h4>
1816
1817 <p>phpBB offers a special method <code>utf8_clean_string</code> which can be used to make sure string identifiers are unique. This method uses Normalization Form Compatibility Composition (NFKC) instead of NFC and replaces similarly looking characters with a particular representative of the equivalence class. This method is currently used for usernames and group names to avoid confusion with similarly looking names.</p>
1818
1819 </div>
1820
1821 <div class="back2top"><a href="#wrap" class="top">Back to Top</a></div>
1822
1823 </div>
1824 </div>
1825
1826 <hr />
1827
1828 <a name="translation"></a><h2>6. Translation (<abbr title="Internationalisation">i18n</abbr>/<abbr title="Localisation">L10n</abbr>) Guidelines</h2>
1829
1830 <div class="paragraph">
1831 <div class="inner">
1832
1833 <div class="content">
1834
1835 <a name="standardisation"></a><h3>6.i. Standardisation</h3>
1836
1837 <h4>Reason:</h4>
1838
1839 <p>phpBB is one of the most translated open-source projects, with the current stable version being available in over 60 localisations. Whilst the ad hoc approach to the naming of language packs has worked, for phpBB3 and beyond we hope to make this process saner which will allow for better interoperation with current and future web browsers.</p>
1840
1841 <h4>Encoding:</h4>
1842
1843 <p>With phpBB3, the output encoding for the forum in now UTF-8, a Universal Character Encoding by the Unicode Consortium that is by design a superset to US-ASCII and ISO-8859-1. By using one character set which simultaenously supports all scripts which previously would have required different encodings (eg: ISO-8859-1 to ISO-8859-15 (Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Thai, Hebrew, Arabic); GB2312 (Simplified Chinese); Big5 (Traditional Chinese), EUC-JP (Japanese), EUC-KR (Korean), VISCII (Vietnamese); et cetera), we remove the need to convert between encodings and improves the accessibility of multilingual forums.</p>
1844
1845 <p>The impact is that the language files for phpBB must now also be encoded as UTF-8, with a caveat that the files must <strong>not contain</strong> a <abbr title="Byte-Order-Mark">BOM</abbr> for compatibility reasons with non-Unicode aware versions of PHP. For those with forums using the Latin character set (ie: most European languages), this change is transparent since UTF-8 is superset to US-ASCII and ISO-8859-1.</p>
1846
1847 <h4>Language Tag:</h4>
1848
1849 <p>The <abbr title="Internet Engineering Task Force">IETF</abbr> recently published <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4646">RFC 4646</a> for tags used to identify languages, which in combination with <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4647">RFC 4647</a> obseletes the older <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3066">RFC 3006</a> and older-still <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1766">RFC 1766</a>. <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4646">RFC 4646</a> uses <a href="http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php">ISO 639-1/ISO 639-2</a>, <a href="http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/list-en1.html">ISO 3166-1 alpha-2</a>, <a href="http://www.unicode.org/iso15924/iso15924-codes.html">ISO 15924</a> and <a href="http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49.htm">UN M.49</a> to define a language tag. Each complete tag is composed of subtags which are not case sensitive and can also be empty.</p>
1850
1851 <p>Ordering of the subtags in the case that they are all non-empty is: <code>language</code>-<code>script</code>-<code>region</code>-<code>variant</code>-<code>extension</code>-<code>privateuse</code>. Should any subtag be empty, its corresponding hyphen would also be ommited. Thus, the language tag for English will be <code>en</code> <strong>and not</strong> <code>en-----</code>.</p>
1852
1853 <p>Most language tags consist of a two- or three-letter language subtag (from <a href="http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php">ISO 639-1/ISO 639-2</a>). Sometimes, this is followed by a two-letter or three-digit region subtag (from <a href="http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/list-en1.html">ISO 3166-1 alpha-2</a> or <a href="http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49.htm">UN M.49</a>). Some examples are:</p>
1854
1855 <table>
1856 <caption>Examples of various possible language tags as described by RFC 4646 and RFC 4647</caption>
1857 <thead>
1858 <tr>
1859 <th scope="col">Language tag</th>
1860 <th scope="col">Description</th>
1861 <th scope="col">Component subtags</th>
1862 </tr>
1863 </thead>
1864 <tbody>
1865 <tr>
1866 <td><code>en</code></td>
1867 <td>English</td>
1868 <td><code>language</code></td>
1869 </tr>
1870 <tr>
1871 <td><code>mas</code></td>
1872 <td>Masai</td>
1873 <td><code>language</code></td>
1874 </tr>
1875 <tr>
1876 <td><code>fr-CA</code></td>
1877 <td>French as used in Canada</td>
1878 <td><code>language</code>+<code>region</code></td>
1879 </tr>
1880 <tr>
1881 <td><code>en-833</code></td>
1882 <td>English as used in the Isle of Man</td>
1883 <td><code>language</code>+<code>region</code></td>
1884 </tr>
1885 <tr>
1886 <td><code>zh-Hans</code></td>
1887 <td>Chinese written with Simplified script</td>
1888 <td><code>language</code>+<code>script</code></td>
1889 </tr>
1890 <tr>
1891 <td><code>zh-Hant-HK</code></td>
1892 <td>Chinese written with Traditional script as used in Hong Kong</td>
1893 <td><code>language</code>+<code>script</code>+<code>region</code></td>
1894 </tr>
1895 <tr>
1896 <td><code>de-AT-1996</code></td>
1897 <td>German as used in Austria with 1996 orthography</td>
1898 <td><code>language</code>+<code>region</code>+<code>variant</code></td>
1899 </tr>
1900 </tbody>
1901 </table>
1902
1903 <p>The ultimate aim of a language tag is to convey the needed <strong>useful distingushing information</strong>, whilst keeping it as <strong>short as possible</strong>. So for example, use <code>en</code>, <code>fr</code> and <code>ja</code> as opposed to <code>en-GB</code>, <code>fr-FR</code> and <code>ja-JP</code>, since we know English, French and Japanese are the native language of Great Britain, France and Japan respectively.</p>
1904
1905 <p>Next is the <a href="http://www.unicode.org/iso15924/iso15924-codes.html">ISO 15924</a> language script code and when one should or shouldn't use it. For example, whilst <code>en-Latn</code> is syntaxically correct for describing English written with Latin script, real world English writing is <strong>more-or-less exclusively in the Latin script</strong>. For such languages like English that are written in a single script, the <a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry"><abbr title="Internet Assigned Numbers Authority">IANA</abbr> Language Subtag Registry</a> has a "Suppress-Script" field meaning the script code <strong>should be ommitted</strong> unless a specific language tag requires a specific script code. Some languages are <strong>written in more than one script</strong> and in such cases, the script code <strong>is encouraged</strong> since an end-user may be able to read their language in one script, but not the other. Some examples are:</p>
1906
1907 <table>
1908 <caption>Examples of using a language subtag in combination with a script subtag</caption>
1909 <thead>
1910 <tr>
1911 <th scope="col">Language tag</th>
1912 <th scope="col">Description</th>
1913 <th scope="col">Component subtags</th>
1914 </tr>
1915 </thead>
1916 <tbody>
1917 <tr>
1918 <td><code>en-Brai</code></td>
1919 <td>English written in Braille script</td>
1920 <td><code>language</code>+<code>script</code></td>
1921 </tr>
1922 <tr>
1923 <td><code>en-Dsrt</code></td>
1924 <td>English written in Deseret (Mormon) script</td>
1925 <td><code>language</code>+<code>script</code></td>
1926 </tr>
1927 <tr>
1928 <td><code>sr-Latn</code></td>
1929 <td>Serbian written in Latin script</td>
1930 <td><code>language</code>+<code>script</code></td>
1931 </tr>
1932 <tr>
1933 <td><code>sr-Cyrl</code></td>
1934 <td>Serbian written in Cyrillic script</td>
1935 <td><code>language</code>+<code>script</code></td>
1936 </tr>
1937 <tr>
1938 <td><code>mn-Mong</code></td>
1939 <td>Mongolian written in Mongolian script</td>
1940 <td><code>language</code>+<code>script</code></td>
1941 </tr>
1942 <tr>
1943 <td><code>mn-Cyrl</code></td>
1944 <td>Mongolian written in Cyrillic script</td>
1945 <td><code>language</code>+<code>script</code></td>
1946 </tr>
1947 <tr>
1948 <td><code>mn-Phag</code></td>
1949 <td>Mongolian written in Phags-pa script</td>
1950 <td><code>language</code>+<code>script</code></td>
1951 </tr>
1952 <tr>
1953 <td><code>az-Cyrl-AZ</code></td>
1954 <td>Azerbaijani written in Cyrillic script as used in Azerbaijan</td>
1955 <td><code>language</code>+<code>script</code>+<code>region</code></td>
1956 </tr>
1957 <tr>
1958 <td><code>az-Latn-AZ</code></td>
1959 <td>Azerbaijani written in Latin script as used in Azerbaijan</td>
1960 <td><code>language</code>+<code>script</code>+<code>region</code></td>
1961 </tr>
1962 <tr>
1963 <td><code>az-Arab-IR</code></td>
1964 <td>Azerbaijani written in Arabic script as used in Iran</td>
1965 <td><code>language</code>+<code>script</code>+<code>region</code></td>
1966 </tr>
1967 </tbody>
1968 </table>
1969
1970 <p>Usage of the three-digit <a href="http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49.htm">UN M.49</a> code over the two-letter <a href="http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/list-en1.html">ISO 3166-1 alpha-2</a> code should hapen if a macro-geographical entity is required and/or the <a href="http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/list-en1.html">ISO 3166-1 alpha-2</a> is ambiguous.</p>
1971
1972 <p>Examples of English using marco-geographical regions:</p>
1973
1974 <table>
1975 <caption>Coding for English using macro-geographical regions (examples for English of ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 vs. UN M.49 code)</caption>
1976 <thead>
1977 <tr>
1978 <th scope="col">ISO 639-1/ISO 639-2 + ISO 3166-1 alpha-2</th>
1979 <th scope="col" colspan="2">ISO 639-1/ISO 639-2 + UN M.49 (Example macro regions)</th>
1980 </tr>
1981 </thead>
1982 <tbody>
1983 <tr>
1984 <td><dl><dt><code>en-AU</code></dt><dd>English as used in <strong>Australia</strong></dd></dl></td>
1985 <td rowspan="2"><dl><dt><code>en-053</code></dt><dd>English as used in <strong>Australia & New Zealand</strong></dd></dl></td>
1986 <td rowspan="3"><dl><dt><code>en-009</code></dt><dd>English as used in <strong>Oceania</strong></dd></dl></td>
1987 </tr>
1988 <tr>
1989 <td><dl><dt><code>en-NZ</code></dt><dd>English as used in <strong>New Zealand</strong></dd></dl></td>
1990 </tr>
1991 <tr>
1992 <td><dl><dt><code>en-FJ</code></dt><dd>English as used in <strong>Fiji</strong></dd></dl></td>
1993 <td><dl><dt><code>en-054 </code></dt><dd>English as used in <strong>Melanesia</strong></dd></dl></td>
1994 </tr>
1995 </tbody>
1996 </table>
1997
1998 <p>Examples of Spanish using marco-geographical regions:</p>
1999
2000 <table>
2001 <caption>Coding for Spanish macro-geographical regions (examples for Spanish of ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 vs. UN M.49 code)</caption>
2002 <thead>
2003 <tr>
2004 <th scope="col">ISO 639-1/ISO 639-2 + ISO 3166-1 alpha-2</th>
2005 <th scope="col" colspan="2">ISO 639-1/ISO 639-2 + UN M.49 (Example macro regions)</th>
2006 </tr>
2007 </thead>
2008 <tbody>
2009 <tr>
2010 <td><dl><dt><code>es-PR</code></dt><dd>Spanish as used in <strong>Puerto Rico</strong></dd></dl></td>
2011 <td rowspan="3"><dl><dt><code>es-419</code></dt><dd>Spanish as used in <strong>Latin America & the Caribbean</strong></dd></dl></td>
2012 <td rowspan="4"><dl><dt><code>es-019</code></dt><dd>Spanish as used in <strong>the Americas</strong></dd></dl></td>
2013 </tr>
2014 <tr>
2015 <td><dl><dt><code>es-HN</code></dt><dd>Spanish as used in <strong>Honduras</strong></dd></dl></td>
2016 </tr>
2017 <tr>
2018 <td><dl><dt><code>es-AR</code></dt><dd>Spanish as used in <strong>Argentina</strong></dd></dl></td>
2019 </tr>
2020 <tr>
2021 <td><dl><dt><code>es-US</code></dt><dd>Spanish as used in <strong>United States of America</strong></dd></dl></td>
2022 <td><dl><dt><code>es-021</code></dt><dd>Spanish as used in <strong>North America</strong></dd></dl></td>
2023 </tr>
2024 </tbody>
2025 </table>
2026
2027 <p>Example of where the <a href="http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/list-en1.html">ISO 3166-1 alpha-2</a> is ambiguous and why <a href="http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49.htm">UN M.49</a> might be preferred:</p>
2028
2029 <table>
2030 <caption>Coding for ambiguous ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 regions</caption>
2031 <thead>
2032 <tr>
2033 <th scope="col" colspan="2"><code>CS</code> assignment pre-1994</th>
2034 <th scope="col" colspan="2"><code>CS</code> assignment post-1994</th>
2035 </tr>
2036 </thead>
2037 <tbody>
2038 <tr>
2039 <td colspan="2">
2040 <dl>
2041 <dt><code>CS</code></dt><dd><strong>Czechoslovakia</strong> (ISO 3166-1)</dd>
2042 <dt><code>200</code></dt><dd><strong>Czechoslovakia</strong> (UN M.49)</dd>
2043 </dl>
2044 </td>
2045 <td colspan="2">
2046 <dl>
2047 <dt><code>CS</code></dt><dd><strong>Serbian & Montenegro</strong> (ISO 3166-1)</dd>
2048 <dt><code>891</code></dt><dd><strong>Serbian & Montenegro</strong> (UN M.49)</dd>
2049 </dl>
2050 </td>
2051 </tr>
2052 <tr>
2053 <td>
2054 <dl>
2055 <dt><code>CZ</code></dt><dd><strong>Czech Republic</strong> (ISO 3166-1)</dd>
2056 <dt><code>203</code></dt><dd><strong>Czech Republic</strong> (UN M.49)</dd>
2057 </dl>
2058 </td>
2059 <td>
2060 <dl>
2061 <dt><code>SK</code></dt><dd><strong>Slovakia</strong> (ISO 3166-1)</dd>
2062 <dt><code>703</code></dt><dd><strong>Slovakia</strong> (UN M.49)</dd>
2063 </dl>
2064 </td>
2065 <td>
2066 <dl>
2067 <dt><code>RS</code></dt><dd><strong>Serbia</strong> (ISO 3166-1)</dd>
2068 <dt><code>688</code></dt><dd><strong>Serbia</strong> (UN M.49)</dd>
2069 </dl>
2070 </td>
2071 <td>
2072 <dl>
2073 <dt><code>ME</code></dt><dd><strong>Montenegro</strong> (ISO 3166-1)</dd>
2074 <dt><code>499</code></dt><dd><strong>Montenegro</strong> (UN M.49)</dd>
2075 </dl>
2076 </td>
2077 </tr>
2078 </tbody>
2079 </table>
2080
2081 <h4>Macro-languages & Topolects:</h4>
2082
2083 <p><a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4646">RFC 4646</a> anticipates features which shall be available in (currently draft) <a href="http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/">ISO 639-3</a> which aims to provide as complete enumeration of languages as possible, including living, extinct, ancient and constructed languages, whether majour, minor or unwritten. A new feature of <a href="http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/">ISO 639-3</a> compared to the previous two revisions is the concept of <a href="http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/macrolanguages.asp">macrolanguages</a> where Arabic and Chinese are two such examples. In such cases, their respective codes of <code>ar</code> and <code>zh</code> is very vague as to which dialect/topolect is used or perhaps some terse classical variant which may be difficult for all but very educated users. For such macrolanguages, it is recommended that the sub-language tag is used as a suffix to the macrolanguage tag, eg:</p>
2084
2085 <table>
2086 <caption>Macrolanguage subtag + sub-language subtag examples</caption>
2087 <thead>
2088 <tr>
2089 <th scope="col">Language tag</th>
2090 <th scope="col">Description</th>
2091 <th scope="col">Component subtags</th>
2092 </tr>
2093 </thead>
2094 <tbody>
2095 <tr>
2096 <td><code>zh-cmn</code></td>
2097 <td>Mandarin (Putonghau/Guoyu) Chinese</td>
2098 <td><code>macrolanguage</code>+<code>sublanguage</code></td>
2099 </tr>
2100 <tr>
2101 <td><code>zh-yue</code></td>
2102 <td>Yue (Cantonese) Chinese</td>
2103 <td><code>macrolanguage</code>+<code>sublanguage</code></td>
2104 </tr>
2105 <tr>
2106 <td><code>zh-cmn-Hans</code></td>
2107 <td>Mandarin (Putonghau/Guoyu) Chinese written in Simplified script</td>
2108 <td><code>macrolanguage</code>+<code>sublanguage</code>+<code>script</code></td>
2109 </tr>
2110 <tr>
2111 <td><code>zh-cmn-Hant</code></td>
2112 <td>Mandarin (Putonghau/Guoyu) Chinese written in Traditional script</td>
2113 <td><code>macrolanguage</code>+<code>sublanguage</code>+<code>script</code></td>
2114 </tr>
2115 <tr>
2116 <td><code>zh-nan-Latn-TW</code></td>
2117 <td>Minnan (Hoklo) Chinese written in Latin script (POJ Romanisation) as used in Taiwan</td>
2118 <td><code>macrolanguage</code>+<code>sublanguage</code>+<code>script</code>+<code>region</code></td>
2119 </tr>
2120 </tbody>
2121 </table>
2122
2123 <a name="otherconsiderations"></a><h3>6.ii. Other considerations</h3>
2124
2125 <h4>Normalisation of language tags for phpBB:</h4>
2126
2127 <p>For phpBB, the language tags are <strong>not</strong> used in their raw form and instead converted to all lower-case and have the hyphen <code>-</code> replaced with an underscore <code>_</code> where appropriate, with some examples below:</p>
2128
2129 <table>
2130 <caption>Language tag normalisation examples</caption>
2131 <thead>
2132 <tr>
2133 <th scope="col">Raw language tag</th>
2134 <th scope="col">Description</th>
2135 <th scope="col">Value of <code>USER_LANG</code><br />in <code>./common.php</code></th>
2136 <th scope="col">Language pack directory<br />name in <code>/language/</code></th>
2137 </tr>
2138 </thead>
2139 <tbody>
2140 <tr>
2141 <td><code>en</code></td>
2142 <td>British English</td>
2143 <td><code>en</code></td>
2144 <td><code>en</code></td>
2145 </tr>
2146 <tr>
2147 <td><code>de-AT</code></td>
2148 <td>German as used in Austria</td>
2149 <td><code>de-at</code></td>
2150 <td><code>de_at</code></td>
2151 </tr>
2152 <tr>
2153 <td><code>es-419</code></td>
2154 <td>Spanish as used in Latin America & Caribbean</td>
2155 <td><code>en-419</code></td>
2156 <td><code>en_419</code></td>
2157 </tr>
2158 <tr>
2159 <td><code>zh-yue-Hant-HK</code></td>
2160 <td>Cantonese written in Traditional script as used in Hong Kong</td>
2161 <td><code>zh-yue-hant-hk</code></td>
2162 <td><code>zh_yue_hant_hk</code></td>
2163 </tr>
2164 </tbody>
2165 </table>
2166
2167 <h4>How to use <code>iso.txt</code>:</h4>
2168
2169 <p>The <code>iso.txt</code> file is a small UTF-8 encoded plain-text file which consists of three lines:</p>
2170
2171 <ol>
2172 <li><code>Language's English name</code></li>
2173 <li><code>Language's local name</code></li>
2174 <li><code>Authors information</code></li>
2175 </ol>
2176
2177 <p><code>iso.txt</code> is automatically generated by the language pack submission system on phpBB.com. You don't have to create this file yourself if you plan on releasing your language pack on phpBB.com, but do keep in mind that phpBB itself does require this file to be present.</p>
2178
2179 <p>Because language tags themselves are meant to be machine read, they can be rather obtuse to humans and why descriptive strings as provided by <code>iso.txt</code> are needed. Whilst <code>en-US</code> could be fairly easily deduced to be "English as used in the United States", <code>de-CH</code> is more difficult less one happens to know that <code>de</code> is from "<span lang="de">Deutsch</span>", German for "German" and <code>CH</code> is the abbreviation of the official Latin name for Switzerland, "<span lang="la">Confoederatio Helvetica</span>".</p>
2180
2181 <p>For the English language description, the language name is always first and any additional attributes required to describe the subtags within the language code are then listed in order separated with commas and enclosed within parentheses, eg:</p>
2182
2183 <table>
2184 <caption>English language description examples for iso.txt</caption>
2185 <thead>
2186 <tr>
2187 <th scope="col">Raw language tag</th>
2188 <th scope="col">English description within <code>iso.txt</code></th>
2189 </tr>
2190 </thead>
2191 <tbody>
2192 <tr>
2193 <td><code>en</code></td>
2194 <td>British English</td>
2195 </tr>
2196 <tr>
2197 <td><code>en-US</code></td>
2198 <td>English (United States)</td>
2199 </tr>
2200 <tr>
2201 <td><code>en-053</code></td>
2202 <td>English (Australia & New Zealand)</td>
2203 </tr>
2204 <tr>
2205 <td><code>de</code></td>
2206 <td>German</td>
2207 </tr>
2208 <tr>
2209 <td><code>de-CH-1996</code></td>
2210 <td>German (Switzerland, 1996 orthography)</td>
2211 </tr>
2212 <tr>
2213 <td><code>gws-1996</code></td>
2214 <td>Swiss German (1996 orthography)</td>
2215 </tr>
2216 <tr>
2217 <td><code>zh-cmn-Hans-CN</code></td>
2218 <td>Mandarin Chinese (Simplified, Mainland China)</td>
2219 </tr>
2220 <tr>
2221 <td><code>zh-yue-Hant-HK</code></td>
2222 <td>Cantonese Chinese (Traditional, Hong Kong)</td>
2223 </tr>
2224 </tbody>
2225 </table>
2226
2227 <p>For the localised language description, just translate the English version though use whatever appropriate punctuation typical for your own locale, assuming the language uses punctuation at all.</p>
2228
2229 <h4>Unicode bi-directional considerations:</h4>
2230
2231 <p>Because phpBB is now UTF-8, all translators must take into account that certain strings may be shown when the directionality of the document is either opposite to normal or is ambiguous.</p>
2232
2233 <p>The various Unicode control characters for bi-directional text and their HTML enquivalents where appropriate are as follows:</p>
2234
2235 <table>
2236 <caption>Unicode bidirectional control characters & HTML elements/entities</caption>
2237 <thead>
2238 <tr>
2239 <th scope="col">Unicode character<br />abbreviation</th>
2240 <th scope="col">Unicode<br />code-point</th>
2241 <th scope="col">Unicode character<br />name</th>
2242 <th scope="col">Equivalent HTML<br />markup/entity</th>
2243 <th scope="col">Raw character<br />(enclosed between '')</th>
2244 </tr>
2245 </thead>
2246 <tbody>
2247 <tr>
2248 <td><code>LRM</code></td>
2249 <td><code>U+200E</code></td>
2250 <td>Left-to-Right Mark</td>
2251 <td><code>&lrm;</code></td>
2252 <td>'‎'</td>
2253 </tr>
2254 <tr>
2255 <td><code>RLM</code></td>
2256 <td><code>U+200F</code></td>
2257 <td>Right-to-Left Mark</td>
2258 <td><code>&rlm;</code></td>
2259 <td>'‏'</td>
2260 </tr>
2261 <tr>
2262 <td><code>LRE</code></td>
2263 <td><code>U+202A</code></td>
2264 <td>Left-to-Right Embedding</td>
2265 <td><code>dir="ltr"</code></td>
2266 <td>'‪'</td>
2267 </tr>
2268 <tr>
2269 <td><code>RLE</code></td>
2270 <td><code>U+202B</code></td>
2271 <td>Right-to-Left Embedding</td>
2272 <td><code>dir="rtl"</code></td>
2273 <td>'‫'</td>
2274 </tr>
2275 <tr>
2276 <td><code>PDF</code></td>
2277 <td><code>U+202C</code></td>
2278 <td>Pop Directional Formatting</td>
2279 <td><code></bdo></code></td>
2280 <td>'‬'</td>
2281 </tr>
2282 <tr>
2283 <td><code>LRO</code></td>
2284 <td><code>U+202D</code></td>
2285 <td>Left-to-Right Override</td>
2286 <td><code><bdo dir="ltr"></code></td>
2287 <td>'‭'</td>
2288 </tr>
2289 <tr>
2290 <td><code>RLO</code></td>
2291 <td><code>U+202E</code></td>
2292 <td>Right-to-Left Override</td>
2293 <td><code><bdo dir="rtl"></code></td>
2294 <td>'‮'</td>
2295 </tr>
2296 </tbody>
2297 </table>
2298
2299 <p>For <code>iso.txt</code>, the directionality of the text can be explicitly set using special Unicode characters via any of the three methods provided by left-to-right/right-to-left markers/embeds/overrides, as without them, the ordering of characters will be incorrect, eg:</p>
2300
2301 <table>
2302 <caption>Unicode bidirectional control characters iso.txt</caption>
2303 <thead>
2304 <tr>
2305 <th scope="col">Directionality</th>
2306 <th scope="col">Raw character view</th>
2307 <th scope="col">Display of localised<br />description in <code>iso.txt</code></th>
2308 <th scope="col">Ordering</th>
2309 </tr>
2310 </thead>
2311 <tbody>
2312 <tr>
2313 <td><code>dir="ltr"</code></td>
2314 <td>English (Australia & New Zealand)</td>
2315 <td dir="ltr">English (Australia & New Zealand)</td>
2316 <td class="good">Correct</td>
2317 </tr>
2318 <tr>
2319 <td><code>dir="rtl"</code></td>
2320 <td>English (Australia & New Zealand)</td>
2321 <td dir="rtl">English (Australia & New Zealand)</td>
2322 <td class="bad">Incorrect</td>
2323 </tr>
2324 <tr>
2325 <td><code>dir="rtl"</code> with <code>LRM</code></td>
2326 <td>English (Australia & New Zealand)<code>U+200E</code></td>
2327 <td dir="rtl">English (Australia & New Zealand)‎</td>
2328 <td class="good">Correct</td>
2329 </tr>
2330 <tr>
2331 <td><code>dir="rtl"</code> with <code>LRE</code> & <code>PDF</code></td>
2332 <td><code>U+202A</code>English (Australia & New Zealand)<code>U+202C</code></td>
2333 <td dir="rtl">‪English (Australia & New Zealand)‬</td>
2334 <td class="good">Correct</td>
2335 </tr>
2336 <tr>
2337 <td><code>dir="rtl"</code> with <code>LRO</code> & <code>PDF</code></td>
2338 <td><code>U+202D</code>English (Australia & New Zealand)<code>U+202C</code></td>
2339 <td dir="rtl">‭English (Australia & New Zealand)‬</td>
2340 <td class="good">Correct</td>
2341 </tr>
2342 </tbody>
2343 </table>
2344
2345 <p>In choosing which of the three methods to use, in the majority of cases, the <code>LRM</code> or <code>RLM</code> to put a "strong" character to fully enclose an ambiguous punctuation character and thus make it inherit the correct directionality is sufficient.</p>
2346 <p>Within some cases, there may be mixed scripts of a left-to-right and right-to-left direction, so using <code>LRE</code> & <code>RLE</code> with <code>PDF</code> may be more appropriate. Lastly, in very rare instances where directionality must be forced, then use <code>LRO</code> & <code>RLO</code> with <code>PDF</code>.</p>
2347 <p>For further information on authoring techniques of bi-directional text, please see the W3C tutorial on <a href="http://www.w3.org/International/tutorials/bidi-xhtml/">authoring techniques for XHTML pages with bi-directional text</a>.</p>
2348
2349 <a name="placeholders"></a><h3>6.iii. Working with placeholders</h3>
2350
2351 <p>As phpBB is translated into languages with different ordering rules to that of English, it is possible to show specific values in any order deemed appropriate. Take for example the extremely simple "Page <em>X</em> of <em>Y</em>", whilst in English this could just be coded as:</p>
2352
2353 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2354 ...
2355 'PAGE_OF' => 'Page %s of %s',
2356 /* Just grabbing the replacements as they
2357 come and hope they are in the right order */
2358 ...</pre>
2359 </div>
2360
2361 <p>… a clearer way to show explicit replacement ordering is to do:</p>
2362
2363 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2364 ...
2365 'PAGE_OF' => 'Page %1$s of %2$s',
2366 /* Explicit ordering of the replacements,
2367 even if they are the same order as English */
2368 ...</pre>
2369 </div>
2370
2371 <p>Why bother at all? Because some languages, the string transliterated back to English might read something like:</p>
2372
2373 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2374 ...
2375 'PAGE_OF' => 'Total of %2$s pages, currently on page %1$s',
2376 /* Explicit ordering of the replacements,
2377 reversed compared to English as the total comes first */
2378 ...</pre>
2379 </div>
2380
2381 <a name="usingplurals"></a><h3>6.iv. Using plurals</h3>
2382
2383 <p>
2384 The english language is very simple when it comes to plurals.<br />
2385 You have <code>0 elephants</code>, <code>1 elephant</code>, or <code>2+ elephants</code>. So basically you have 2 different forms: one singular and one plural.<br />
2386 But for some other languages this is quite more difficult. Let's take the Bosnian language as another example:<br />
2387 You have <code>[1/21/31] slon</code>, <code>[2/3/4] slona</code>, <code>[0/5/6] slonova</code> and <code>[7/8/9/11] ...</code> and some more difficult rules.
2388 </p>
2389
2390 <p>The <a href="https://wiki.phpbb.com/Plural_Rules">plural system</a> takes care of this and can be used as follows:</p>
2391
2392 <p>The PHP code will basically look like this:</p>
2393
2394 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2395 ...
2396 $user->lang('NUMBER_OF_ELEPHANTS', $number_of_elephants);
2397 ...</pre>
2398 </div>
2399
2400 <p>And the English translation would be:</p>
2401
2402 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2403 ...
2404 'NUMBER_OF_ELEPHANTS' => array(
2405 0 => 'You have no elephants', // Optional special case for 0
2406 1 => 'You have 1 elephant', // Singular
2407 2 => 'You have %d elephants', // Plural
2408 ),
2409 ...</pre>
2410 </div>
2411
2412 <p>While the Bosnian translation can have more cases:</p>
2413
2414 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2415 ...
2416 'NUMBER_OF_ELEPHANTS' => array(
2417 0 => 'You have no slonova', // Optional special case for 0
2418 1 => 'You have %d slon', // Used for 1, 21, 31, ..
2419 2 => 'You have %d slona', // Used for 5, 6,
2420 3 => ...
2421 ),
2422 ...</pre>
2423 </div>
2424
2425 <p><strong>NOTE:</strong> It is okay to use plurals for an unknown number compared to a single item, when the number is not known and displayed:</p>
2426 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2427 ...
2428 'MODERATOR' => 'Moderator', // Your board has 1 moderator
2429 'MODERATORS' => 'Moderators', // Your board has multiple moderators
2430 ...</pre>
2431 </div>
2432
2433 <a name="writingstyle"></a><h3>6.v. Writing Style</h3>
2434
2435 <h4>Miscellaneous tips & hints:</h4>
2436
2437 <p>As the language files are PHP files, where the various strings for phpBB are stored within an array which in turn are used for display within an HTML page, rules of syntax for both must be considered. Potentially problematic characters are: <code>'</code> (straight quote/apostrophe), <code>"</code> (straight double quote), <code><</code> (less-than sign), <code>></code> (greater-than sign) and <code>&</code> (ampersand).</p>
2438
2439 <p class="bad">// Bad - The un-escapsed straight-quote/apostrophe will throw a PHP parse error</p>
2440
2441 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2442 ...
2443 'CONV_ERROR_NO_AVATAR_PATH'
2444 => 'Note to developer: you must specify $convertor['avatar_path'] to use %s.',
2445 ...</pre>
2446 </div>
2447
2448 <p class="good">// Good - Literal straight quotes should be escaped with a backslash, ie: \</p>
2449
2450 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2451 ...
2452 'CONV_ERROR_NO_AVATAR_PATH'
2453 => 'Note to developer: you must specify $convertor[\'avatar_path\'] to use %s.',
2454 ...</pre>
2455 </div>
2456
2457 <p>However, because phpBB3 now uses UTF-8 as its sole encoding, we can actually use this to our advantage and not have to remember to escape a straight quote when we don't have to:</p>
2458
2459 <p class="bad">// Bad - The un-escapsed straight-quote/apostrophe will throw a PHP parse error</p>
2460
2461 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2462 ...
2463 'USE_PERMISSIONS' => 'Test out user's permissions',
2464 ...</pre>
2465 </div>
2466
2467 <p class="good">// Okay - However, non-programmers wouldn't type "user\'s" automatically</p>
2468
2469 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2470 ...
2471 'USE_PERMISSIONS' => 'Test out user\'s permissions',
2472 ...</pre>
2473 </div>
2474
2475 <p class="good">// Best - Use the Unicode Right-Single-Quotation-Mark character</p>
2476
2477 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2478 ...
2479 'USE_PERMISSIONS' => 'Test out user’s permissions',
2480 ...</pre>
2481 </div>
2482
2483 <p>The <code>"</code> (straight double quote), <code><</code> (less-than sign) and <code>></code> (greater-than sign) characters can all be used as displayed glyphs or as part of HTML markup, for example:</p>
2484
2485 <p class="bad">// Bad - Invalid HTML, as segments not part of elements are not entitised</p>
2486
2487 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2488 ...
2489 'FOO_BAR' => 'PHP version < 5.3.3.<br />
2490 Visit "Downloads" at <a href="http://www.php.net/">www.php.net</a>.',
2491 ...</pre>
2492 </div>
2493
2494 <p class="good">// Okay - No more invalid HTML, but "&quot;" is rather clumsy</p>
2495
2496 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2497 ...
2498 'FOO_BAR' => 'PHP version &lt; 5.3.3.<br />
2499 Visit &quot;Downloads&quot; at <a href="http://www.php.net/">www.php.net</a>.',
2500 ...</pre>
2501 </div>
2502
2503 <p class="good">// Best - No more invalid HTML, and usage of correct typographical quotation marks</p>
2504
2505 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2506 ...
2507 'FOO_BAR' => 'PHP version &lt; 5.3.3.<br />
2508 Visit “Downloads” at <a href="http://www.php.net/">www.php.net</a>.',
2509 ...</pre>
2510 </div>
2511
2512 <p>Lastly, the <code>&</code> (ampersand) must always be entitised regardless of where it is used:</p>
2513
2514 <p class="bad">// Bad - Invalid HTML, none of the ampersands are entitised</p>
2515
2516 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2517 ...
2518 'FOO_BAR' => '<a href="http://somedomain.tld/?foo=1&bar=2">Foo & Bar</a>.',
2519 ...</pre>
2520 </div>
2521
2522 <p class="good">// Good - Valid HTML, amperands are correctly entitised in all cases</p>
2523
2524 <div class="codebox"><pre>
2525 ...
2526 'FOO_BAR' => '<a href="http://somedomain.tld/?foo=1&amp;bar=2">Foo &amp; Bar</a>.',
2527 ...</pre>
2528 </div>
2529
2530 <p>As for how these charcters are entered depends very much on choice of Operating System, current language locale/keyboard configuration and native abilities of the text editor used to edit phpBB language files. Please see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode#Input_methods">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode#Input_methods</a> for more information.</p>
2531
2532 <h4>Spelling, punctuation, grammar, et cetera:</h4>
2533
2534 <p>The default language pack bundled with phpBB is <strong>British English</strong> using <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/">Cambridge University Press</a> spelling and is assigned the language code <code>en</code>. The style and tone of writing tends towards formal and translations <strong>should</strong> emulate this style, at least for the variant using the most compact language code. Less formal translations or those with colloquialisms <strong>must</strong> be denoted as such via either an <code>extension</code> or <code>privateuse</code> tag within its language code.</p>
2535
2536 </div>
2537
2538 <div class="back2top"><a href="#wrap" class="top">Back to Top</a></div>
2539
2540 </div>
2541 </div>
2542
2543 <hr />
2544
2545 <a name="disclaimer"></a><h2>7. Copyright and disclaimer</h2>
2546
2547 <div class="paragraph">
2548 <div class="inner">
2549
2550 <div class="content">
2551
2552 <p>phpBB is free software, released under the terms of the <a href="http://opensource.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.php">GNU General Public License, version 2 (GPL-2.0)</a>. Copyright © <a href="https://www.phpbb.com">phpBB Limited</a>. For full copyright and license information, please see the docs/CREDITS.txt file.</p>
2553
2554 </div>
2555
2556 <div class="back2top"><a href="#wrap" class="top">Back to Top</a></div>
2557
2558 </div>
2559 </div>
2560
2561 <!-- END DOCUMENT -->
2562
2563 <div id="page-footer">
2564 <div class="version"> </div>
2565 </div>
2566 </div></div>
2567
2568 <div>
2569 <a id="bottom" accesskey="z"></a>
2570 </div>
2571
2572 </body>
2573 </html>
2574