Joshua Oiknine

There are a few tutorials out there the describe how to connect and compile php binaries (libraries) for Heroku but I didn’t find anything that gave the complete process and I wanted to outline that process here. I have also been building a github repo with the results of my labors which you can find here https://github.com/joshOiknine/php-heroku-extensions.

First let’s get onto the heroku instance:

cd /myApp
heroku run bash

Move to your tmp directory:

$: cd /tmp

Download your source and extract the files. For this example we will download PHP using curl but you could also use git clone for git repositories:

$: curl http://www.php.net/distributions/php-5.4.15.tar.gz > php-5.4.15.tar.gz
$: tar xzf php-5.4.15.tar.gz

At this point you can complie all of PHP with the extentions you want then go find them but I like navigating to the extention I want to build and compiling it from there. Let’s compile zip:

$: cd php-5.4.15/ext/zip
$: /app/php/bin/phpize
$: ./configure --with-php-config=/app/php/bin/php-config
$: make

If everything works out then you will have your zip.so file in the modules directory:

$: cd modules/
$: ls -l

Now the fun part getting the files off this instance of Heroku. The problem we are now facing is that once you exit the bash session on Heroku all of your previous work is gone. The simples way I found was to SFTP the files off of Heroku to another server but just in case you don’t have an extra server lying around that is accessible I found using PagodaBox as a great free option. You can set up an account with PagodaBox and set it to run in legacy SFTP mode.  Then all you need to do is SFTP the files from Heroku to PagodaBox.

$: sftp instance-name@pagodabox.com
sftp> put zip.so
sfpt> exit
$: exit

Now you are safe to exit the Hekou bash shell.

Next you will need to download this extension and put it in your project. I usually make a ext folder in my project’s root directory for these files.

mkdir ext
cd ext
sftp instance-name@pagodabox.com
sftp> get zip.so

The last step before you push your changes to Heroku is to make a php.ini file and include this extension in it.

cd ..
nano php.ini

Once in the ini file add the extension like so:

extension_dir = "/app/www/ext/"
extension=zip.so

Save the php.ini file. Commit your changes to git and push to Heroku.

If you are having any issues or need a library compiled check my github repo at https://github.com/joshOiknine/php-heroku-extensions.

Ever wanted to use the default Pintrest button but wanted to make it a little larger? With a little CSS hacking it’s pretty simple. It is important here to include a wrapper around the button in order to have a more specific target than the default styles from Pintrest.

Here is how I did it.

Markup:

<div class="pintrest-button">
    <a data-pin-config="none" href="//pinterest.com/pin/create/button/" data-pin-do="buttonBookmark"><img src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/pidgets/pin_it_button.png"></a>
</div>

CSS:

.pintrest-button a[class*='PIN_'] {
    background-size: 50px 69px!important;
    background-position: 0 -23px;
    height: 23px!important;
    width: 50px!important;
}
.pintrest-button a[class*='_hazClick'] {
    background-position: 0 -46px!important;
}

Happy pinning!

A little recipe I worked up that is proven to help anyone succeed.

    class recipie_for_success {
    
        function __construct() {
            $this->try_to_succeed();
        }
    
        function try_to_succeed() {
    
            $successful = $this->try_something();
    
            if (!$successful) {
                return $this->try_to_succeed();
            } else {
                return true;
            }
        }
    
        function try_something() {
            return  $it_worked;
        }
    }