Advice on how to make hacks

[Gary King]

Originally Posted by MindTrix

What would you recommend i concentrate on?

Note variables and if statements etc dont count cause i know them

So far im guessing Arrays, and Database things.

Anything else? BEcause if objects arent nessasary i might just skip that chapter

I think it's best to start hacking right away, and if you run into any problems then just ask for help - that's how I learned (and you still learn everyday ), using the hands-on approach

[MindTrix]

Ok well any chance of some kind of mostly used code etc to help?
Like the one to call templates, or some variables etc etc :$

Actually the variables you can pretty much get from vB3 when you hover over things in the admin cp huh

[NTLDR]

You will more than likly use objects for your code, or example $DB_site to run queries, however you don't really need to know how it works, just what the function does, like $DB_site->query_first() runs a query and returns the first row it gets.

[MindTrix]

Ahh right thank you

That reminds me

What does -> mean? I kept seeing it in the Objects part of my book yet it did not explain what i meant or does

[NTLDR]

$DB_site is the object, query_first() is a function within that object so -> means call the variable or function from that object.

[MindTrix]

Ahhhhhh i get you!! the query_first() function is stored inside the object, Yeah thats the part im kind of reading now

[KuraFire]

going through vBulletin's functions files (yes, ALL of them!!!) is very helpful too. Every file in the /includes/ directory is a SUPERBE tutorial for learning PHP and MySQL :up:

[MindTrix]

because................?

[NTLDR]

You'll find alot of usefull stuff for starters You may also find that it saves you alot of time too, if there is a function there that does what you want, that you don't know about you can use it instead of having to do the work yourself.

With the improved naming of functions in vB3 you can also look at the name which gives you some idea of what it does and then work out how the code does the task. If you want to create some serious vB hacks then you really need to nose through the files and see whats in them

[rrottman]

Originally Posted by MindTrix

because................?

MindTrix, I'm happy I finally found somebody at somewhat the same stage as I am... :-) However I though you were a master hacker already... .

I'm coming from a Java, J2EE, Servlet, JSP and Struts background, so I can kind of "read" most of the PHP stuff right away, although the notion of objects seems a little bit "injected" into the language.

I highly recommend to print out the .php files. I don't recommend to try to follow them "on screen". I printed out all of them on a color printer and just try to read through them "offline".

The thing which confuses me most is the overwhelming use of arrays by the vB team. And I'm really missing a basic developer documentation outlining what all the vars, consts and array actually mean in terms of the business objects they represent. Some of them have pretty explanatory names but there are paragraphs I've read n times without understanding even a bit of what and why they are doing things... .

I still think the vB team produces the best and most efficient php code around. So learning from their files is definitely a great privilege.

I also highly recommend Zend's Studio Pro which gives you a great debugger with variable tracing which helps a lot stepping through a vB session.

I still believe it might make sense to create a dedicated forum here at vb.org which focusses not on small hacks but on concepts, guides, documentation of code.