Moodle: Create and save an excel file in moodle filesystem

Hello,

Moodle filesystem is powerful but it's hard to understand too. In this code we will see how to create an excel file and save it in the moodle filesystem:

Documentation:
https://docs.moodle.org/dev/File_API_internals
https://docs.moodle.org/dev/File_API

// Create excel file
require_once("$CFG->libdir/phpexcel/PHPExcel.php");
$filenameTmp = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), time());

$objPHPExcel = new PHPExcel();

// Excel metadata $objPHPExcel->getProperties()->setCreator("www.ibancardonasubiela.tk") ->setLastModifiedBy("www.ibancardonasubiela.tk") ->setTitle("www.ibancardonasubiela.tk") ->setSubject("www.ibancardonasubiela.tk") ->setDescription("www.ibancardonasubiela.tk")

// Crear the first sheet
$objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0);
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setTitle("www.ibancardonasubiela.tk");

// Header
$arrayHeader = array('aaa', 'bbb');
$countHeader = count($arrayHeader);
foreach ($arrayHeader as $pos => $value) {
$excelLetter = PHPExcel_Cell::stringFromColumnIndex($pos);
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->getStyle($excelLetter.'1')->getFont()->setSize(14);
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->getStyle($excelLetter.'1')->getFont()->setBold(true);
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue($excelLetter.'1', $value);
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->getColumnDimension($excelLetter)->setAutoSize(true);
}

// Add content

// Save excel in a temporal file
$objWriter = new PHPExcel_Writer_Excel2007($objPHPExcel);
$objWriter->save($filenameTmp);

// Copy excel to moodle filesystem
$fs = get_file_storage();
$file_record = array(
'contextid' => 0,
'component' => 'backup', // "mod_forum", "course", "mod_assignment", "backup"...
'filearea' => 'course', // "submissions", "intro" and "content" , "blogs","userfiles"...
'itemid' => 0,
'filepath' => '/',
'timecreated' => time(),
'timemodified' => time(),
'filename' => 'excel'.'_'.time().'.xlsx'
);
$fs->create_file_from_pathname($file_record, $filenameTmp);

// Delete temp file
unlink($filenameTmp);

Best regards!

Datatables in a bootstrap 3 modal window

Datatables is an important javascript plugin for jQuery to improve behaviour of our website tables.

Recently I saw that using tables (datatables tables) in a bootstrap modal window, after init the table, part of table was shown outside of the window.

I'm using version 1.9.3 of datatables, version 1.10.2 of jQuery and versio 3.0.1 of bootstrap.

My solution was use "fnDrawCallback" function in order to change the window's size after "drawing" the table:

tableObject = $('#idTable').dataTable({
"bProcessing": true,
"bServerSide": true,
"sAjaxSource": "ajaxSource",
"fnDrawCallback": function( oSettings ) {
$('#idTable').find('.modal-dialog').css(
{
width:'auto',
height:'auto',
'max-height':'100%'
});
},
'aaSorting': [[ 0, "asc" ]]
});

Kind regards!

Moodle: get top category from course data

Hello!

If we have course data and we want to get top category from that, we can do this:

$category = $DB->get_record('course_categories', array('id' => $courseObj->category));
$arrCats = explode("/", ($category->path));
$topCategory = $DB->get_record('course_categories', array('id' => intval($arrCats[1])));

Best regards!

Moodle: purge all caches by console

Hello,

If we have a moodle installed, a very interesting method to delete all caches is to use system console. To do that, we have to go to our moodle route and execute:

php admin/cli/purge_caches.php

Best regards!

Backup with rsync

Hello,

Today I set up a bash script in order to create backups with rsync. I created it in a OS 10.7.x (Lion) environment. Steps I did are:

• I formatted a WD hard disk following this link: http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/search/1/a_id/3865/c/130/p/228,219,290
• I developed backup.sh script adding this code:
#!/bin/bash
PATHFROM = "/.../..." # folder to create backup
PATHTO = "/.../..." # path of the hard disk
rsync -av --exclude={"*chat*","*library*"} $PATHFROM $PATHTO

Best regards!

PHP: Clean uploaded filenames

Hello,

When a file is uploaded to a server, you could have filenames with characters that can cause problems. To clear the filename you can use:

$filename = time().'_'.$_FILES["file"]["name"]; // File name.
$filename = preg_replace('/[[:^print:]]/', '', $filename); // Replace illegal chars

Regards!

Laravel 4: Create multi language page with session

Laravel is a strong PHP framework that is widely used. Recently, I was developing with that framework and I needed to create a website with content in 2 languages: catalan and spanish.

To solve this problem you can use some options... like url with language or save language in session. I decided to use the last one.

I created this code:

filters.php

App::before(function($request) {
// We use the locale of the session
if ( Session::has('locale') ) { App::setLocale(Session::get('locale')); }
});

BaseController.php

class BaseController extends Controller {

public function switchLocale($lang) {
// We change the locale lang in the session and redirect back (see filter language in filters.php).
if ( in_array($lang, Config::get('app.available_language')) ) {
Session::put('locale', $lang);
}
return Redirect::back();
}
}

app.php

'locale' => 'es',
'fallback_locale' => 'ca',
'available_language' => array('es', 'ca'),

Finally,  in our view we use this code in the links used to change the language:

Catalan -> URL::action('BaseController@switchLocale', array('ca'))
Spanish -> URL::action('BaseController@switchLocale', array('es'))