Shortening Reused Code?

[Ethics]

Hey guys,

There is a piece of code I use throughout my site quite a bit. I feel as if the site is slowing down because of the constant repetition of the code.

So I was wondering if there was anyway to rewrite the code I'm using into a single block instead of constantly re pasting it every time I need to pull some data.

<?
$use_curl = 0;
$symbols = "ABX.TO";

$quote = array();
$url = "http://finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=$symbols&f=l1p2v&e=.csv";

$fcontents = @file($url);

foreach($fcontents as $line) {
$info = split(",", $line);
for($i = 0; $i < sizeof($info); $i ++) {
$info[$i] = trim(str_replace('"', "", $info[$i]));
}
$last = $info[0];
$change = $info[1];
$volume = $info[2];
?>
<tr>
	<td class="company"><a href="#">Barrick</a></td>
	<td><?php echo "{$last}"; ?></td>
	<td><?php if ($change > 0){ echo "<font color=\"#008800\">{$change}</font>"; } elseif($change < 0){ echo "<font color=\"#c10000\">{$change}</font>"; } else echo "<font color=\"#4e4e4e\">{$change}</font>"; ?></td>
	<td class="volume"><?php echo "{$volume}"; ?></td>
</tr>
<?php flush(); } ?>

CODE REPEATS HERE

<?
$use_curl = 0;
$symbols = "BOL.ST";

$quote = array();
$url = "http://finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=$symbols&f=l1p2v&e=.csv";

$fcontents = @file($url);

foreach($fcontents as $line) {
$info = split(",", $line);
for($i = 0; $i < sizeof($info); $i ++) {
$info[$i] = trim(str_replace('"', "", $info[$i]));
}
$last = $info[0];
$change = $info[1];
$volume = $info[2];
?>
<tr>
	<td class="company"><a href="#">Boliden AB</a></td>
	<td><?php echo "{$last}"; ?></td>
	<td><?php if ($change > 0){ echo "<font color=\"#008800\">{$change}</font>"; } elseif($change < 0){ echo "<font color=\"#c10000\">{$change}</font>"; } else echo "<font color=\"#4e4e4e\">{$change}</font>"; ?></td>
	<td class="volume"><?php echo "{$volume}"; ?></td>
</tr>
<?php flush(); } ?>

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Mario

[AnthonySterling]

Even if you create a handy-dandy function to perform this task for you (which you probably should do anyway), you would still be performing the same task, only under a different guise.

Does the data from Yahoo really need to be live? If not, why not create a cache? Or possibly create a cron job which runs at set intervals updating a local data source which the script accesses.

[Ethics]

Hey,

Thank you for the reply. Unfortunately the data has to be live. I'm fairly new with PHP so I'm not too sure about what other options I have, but I will look into a 'cron job' as you suggested.

Do you know if the script I'm using would slow down a site noticeably? Perhaps if it was being used 10+ times on a single page.

If anybody else as any suggestions I would love to hear them, I'm open to any method.

Thank you,
Mario

[AnthonySterling]

Does it really have to be live, or can the data be x seconds, minutes old?

[Ethics]

The data can have a 10 to 20 minute delay.

[AnthonySterling]

Great, well here's how you would go about setting up a local cache of the data you require.

A cron job is a scheduled task which you can get the server to run at set intervals, you would get your cron job to run the following script...at say 10 minute intervals?

<?php
$aSymbols = array(
    'ABX.TO'
);
$aData = array();
foreach ($aSymbols as $sSymbol)
{
    $aData[$sSymbol] = getStockData($sSymbol);
}
file_put_contents('stockCache.dat', serialize($aData));

function getStockData($sSymbol)
{
    $sCSV = file_get_contents('http://finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=' . $sSymbol . '&f=l1p2v&e=.csv');
    list($sLast, $sChange, $sVolume) = explode(',', preg_replace('~[^0-9.,%\\-\\+]~', '', $sCSV));
    return array('last' => $sLast, 'change' => $sChange, 'volume' => $sVolume);
}
?>

This would create a local file called stockCache.dat, you would then use that data instead of the data from Yahoo on each page load.

Something along the lines of....

<?php
foreach(unserialize(file_get_contents('stockCache.dat')) as $sSymbol => $aStockData)
{
    echo $aStockData['last'], $aStockData['change'], $aStockData['volume'];
}
?>

I hope I'm making sense!

[Ethics]

Hey,

Thanks for the code, I gave it a shot but ran into a small error.

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: file_put_contents() in /test.php on line 20

Line 21 is...

file_put_contents('stockCache.dat', serialize($aData));

I tried creating the stockCache.dat myself on the server but still got the error. Any idea why I might be running into this issue?

Thanks again,
Mario

[AnthonySterling]

file_put_contents was only added in PHP 5, if you are running a PHP 4 variant it won't exist.

Here's an alternative.

<?php
if (!function_exists('file_put_contents')) {
    function file_put_contents($filename, $data) {
        $f = @fopen($filename, 'w');
        if (!$f) {
            return false;
        } else {
            $bytes = fwrite($f, $data);
            fclose($f);
            return $bytes;
        }
    }
}
?>

[Ethics]

Awesome!

It works like a charm.

Just one last quick question if you have a second.

To put more symbols in the array its...

$aSymbols = array(
    'ABX.TO',
    'ABX.TO',
    'ABX.TO'
);

Correct?

And how would I go about calling a single item from the array?

Thanks again, your help saved me hours of figuring it out myself.

[AnthonySterling]

Correct-a-mundo!

<?php
$aStockData = unserialize(file_get_contents('stockCache.dat'));
echo $aStockData['ABX.TO']['change'];
?>

...and your most welcome, happy to help.

[Ethics]

Hey,

The code works great!

Just a quick question...

Where can I edit the interval at which the file is updated?

Thanks,
Mario

[imaginethis]

It currently doesn't. You can try to write the file every 10 mins.

// filemtime retrieves the unix timestamp for when a file was last modified
if((time() - filemtime('stockCahce.dat')) >= 1*60*10)
{
    $aSymbols = array(
        'ABX.TO'
    );
    $aData = array();
    foreach ($aSymbols as $sSymbol)
    {
        $aData[$sSymbol] = getStockData($sSymbol);
    }
    file_put_contents('stockCache.dat', serialize($aData));
} 

[Ethics]

Thanks for the quick answer imaginethis.

I will implement that into my code.

If a time is not set what is the default in terms of how often the file is written to?

Thanks,
Mario

[imaginethis]

Whenever you write to a file the time is set. So when it's created there is a time. Just make sure the file exists and there will always be a last-updated time.

// filemtime retrieves the unix timestamp for when a file was last modified
if(((time() - filemtime('stockCahce.dat')) >= 1*60*10) ||
     (!file_exists('stockCache.dat'))  // check if file exists
{
    $aSymbols = array(
        'ABX.TO'
    );
    $aData = array();
    foreach ($aSymbols as $sSymbol)
    {
        $aData[$sSymbol] = getStockData($sSymbol);
    }
    file_put_contents('stockCache.dat', serialize($aData));
}