Installing a 32-bit JDK is very easy. First, download the right package from the sun download site: http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp and extract it. To extract the .bin file, you need need to make sure to make the .bin file executable. After that, you can run the file and it should extract itself to the current directory. You can now use the JDK by referencing it directly or by setting it as an alternative using the appropriate instructions. For the purpose of this article however, we don’t need to get into that. Next, you will need to update your start/stop scripts to take advantage of the new JDK.

Unfortunately, you still have more to do because the start/stop scripts use JSVC to control the Tomcat daemon. If you try to startup tomcat after referencing the new JDK, you will notice that you get an error stating that it cannot locate a valid JVM. This is because the JSVC that has been installed, is a 64-bit binary and is looking for a 64-bit JVM. You will now need to recompile JSVC as a 32-bit binary so that you can use it with your 32-bit JDK. This is where things get a little tricky. After some googling, I found the following instructions. Unfortunately, these instructions didn’t work for me as is.

To compile JSVC, you will first you need to download and extract the JSVC source. Next, make sure you have lib32gcc1 and libc6-dev-i386 installed. On a Debian system you can do this with the following command:

sudo aptitude install lib32gcc1 libc6-dev-i386

If you do not have the packages installed, aptitude will prompt you to install the packages. Next, run the following configure commands to configure and build JSVC:

cd /path/to/jsvc/src/native/unix/
CFLAGS=-m32 CPPFLAGS=-m32 CCASFLAGS=-m32 LDFLAGS="-L/path/to/32/bit/shared/libraries/" ./configure --with-java=/path/to/32/bit/jdk/ --build=i686-pc-linux-gnu
make
cd native/
gcc -m32 -L/path/to/32/bit/shared/libraries/ -ldl -lpthread jsvc-unix.o libservice.a -o ../jsvc

On a Debian machine the path to your shared libraries might be:

/emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib

By this point, you should have a jsvc binary in your /path/to/jsvc/src/native/unix/ directory. You can move this where ever you like and reference it from your tomcat start/stop scripts. Now, your done!

is an open source platform that brings the power of Lua to web development

While this was my goal, I wanted to start from scratch since I haven’t had any experience with the language and didn’t want to learn it on a specific platform just yet. So, I went on to figure out how to install and configure Lua with MAMP. To accomplish this yourself, you will need: Xcode, MAMP, Lua, LuaRocks, MAMP source, and mod_fcgid.

Step 1: Install Xcode

This one is pretty straight forward. You can easily install Xcode if you have an OS X install DVD. Otherwise you can download it from the Apple Developer Center.

Step 2: Install Lua

Installing Lua is also straight forward. Download the source from Lua’s FTP site. I chose the current version (5.1.4). After extracting the source run the following commands:

cd /path/to/source/
make macosx
sudo make install

This should install the Lua interpreter into your /usr/local/bin/

Step 3: Install LuaRocks

To install LuaRocks, you first need to download the source. The current release is 2.0.1. After downloading the source run the following commands:

cd /path/to/source/
make
sudo make install

This should install luarocks in /usr/local/bin/ . You can test your installation with:
luarocks help
You should be presented with a list of commands to use luarocks.

Step 4: Install Lua MySQL support

This part is a little tricky as you need to make sure you have the source for your MAMP installation. You can download the MAMP source from the MAMP website. Running the .dmg should extract the source. After extracting the source run the following:

mkdir /Applications/MAMP/Library/Include/
mv /path/to/extracted/mamp/source/ /Applications/MAMP/Library/Include/

Once you have moved your source over, extract the MySQL package then run the following commands:

cd /Applications/MAMP/Library/include/mysql-5.1.37/
./configure
make

Once you have finished building MySQL, you will want to move the mysqlclient into the current MySQL location:

cp /Applications/MAMP/Library/include/mysql-5.1.37/libmysql/.libs/*.dylib /Applications/MAMP/Library/lib/mysql/

You will now be able to install the luasql-mysql package from luarocks with the following command:

sudo luarocks install luasql-mysql 2.2.0-1 MYSQL_INCDIR=/Applications/MAMP/Library/include/mysql-5.1.37/include MYSQL_LIBDIR=/Applications/MAMP/Library/lib/mysql


Step 5: Install Lua fcgid wrapper

This is an easy one:

luarocks install lua wsapi-fcgi 1.1


Step 6: Install Apache mod_fcgid

This part was a bit tricky for me since I don’t have much experience compiling Apache modules. First, you will need to extract the httpd source, for me this was httpd-2.0.63.tar.gz. Next, you will want to build Apache into a separate directory. Use the following to build Apache:

./configure --prefix=/path/to/target/Apache
make
make install

While running the make command, you may get the following error:


sendrecv.c:965:2: error: #error APR has detected sendfile on your system, but nobody has written a
sendrecv.c:966:2: error: #error version of it for APR yet. To get past this, either write apr_sendfile
sendrecv.c:967:2: error: #error or change APR_HAS_SENDFILE in apr.h to 0.


Fixing this is simple, all you need to do is edit /Applications/MAMP/Library/include/httpd-2.0.63/srclib/apr/include/apr.h and make the following modifications:

-#define APR_HAS_SENDFILE 1
+#define APR_HAS_SENDFILE 0


I know its taken quite some time now, but you are almost done! All that’s left is to build mod_fcgid and configure Apache. To build mod_fcgid run the following commands:

APXS=/path/to/target/Apache/bin/apxs ./configure.apxs
make
make install
cp /path/to/target/Apache/modules/mod_fcgid.so /Applications/MAMP/Library/modules


Step 7: Configure Apache for mod_fcgid and Lua

Now that you have everything built and in place, you just need to configure Apache and then you will be ready to start building Lua web apps!

Open /Applications/MAMP/conf/apache2/httpd.conf with your favorite text editor and add the following to the load modules section:

LoadModule fcgid_module modules/mod_fcgid.so

While you are at it, you can comment out the following lines if you like (I am not sure if it is possonlble to run mod_cgid with mod_fcgid, so I just took them out).

#LoadModule cgi_module modules/mod_cgi.so
#LoadModule cgid_module modules/mod_cgid.so

Next, find the IfModule mod_fcgid directive, and add the following under it:


AddHandler fcgid-script .lua
FcgidWrapper /Users/avayanis/.luarocks/bin/wsapi.fcgi .lua
Options +ExecCGI


Finally, restart Apache through the MAMP application and test it out! Here is a sample lua script to test out your Lua environment:

module(..., package.seeall)
 
function run(wsapi_env)
    local headers = { ["Content-type"] = "text/html" }
 
    local function hello_text()
        coroutine.yield("Hello World!")
    end
    return 200, headers, coroutine.wrap(hello_text)
end

login.elements.username.type = "text"

And turns it into:

Array
(
    [login] => Array
        (
            [elements] => Array
                (
                    [username] => Array
                        (
                            [type] => text
                        )
                )
        )
)

Now, back to Zend_Form. I think my biggest gripe with the documentation provided for Zend_Form is that it does not explain how anything is working behind the scenes. For instance, it does not explain that Zend_Form normalizes config statements by prepending ‘set’ when making calls to member methods. This is invaluable as it explains why

    $form->setElementDecorators(array('ViewHelper'));

in PHP becomes

    elementDecorators.helper = "ViewHelper"

in a Zend_Config_Ini. Internally, elementDecorators tells Zend_Form to call setElementDecorators(); This small example also shows why it is important to know how Zend_Config_Ini actually translates an INI to PHP…

Array
(
    [elementDecorators] => Array
        (
            [helper] => ViewHelper
        )
)

As we can see this declares an array of decorators to be passed into setElementDecorators(); The keys, in this case “helper”, do not necessarily matter as it is only needed to index the array, the values are what matter, as that is what is passed and used within Zend_Form. Similarly, it is important to know that almost all aspects of form and form elements, excluding form element type, are implemented internally as options. The following is an example INI file with comments explaining particular sections.

    ; A basic Form config
 
    ; First level attributes are automatically treated as options.
    action = "login/submit"
    method = "post"
    id = "login"
 
    ; Form Decorators
 
    ; Again these decorators are treated as options of the main form.
    decorators.elements.decorator = "FormElements"
    decorators.table.decorator = "HtmlTag"
    decorators.table.options.tag = "table"
    decorators.form.decorator = "Form"
 
    ; Username Element
 
    ; Form Element Type is specified explicityly, not as an option.
    elements.username.type = "text"
 
    ; Username attributes (Label, Required, and validators are all
    ; declared as options).
    elements.username.options.label = "Username:"
    elements.username.options.required = true
    elements.username.options.validators.alnum.validator = "alnum"
    elements.username.options.validators.regex.validator = "regex"
 
    ; Validator parameters such as pattern to regex are also
    ; declared as options. I have not looked into it, but I
    ; assume this is due to the way Zend_Validate handles its
    ; own constructors.
    elements.username.options.validators.regex.options.pattern = "/^[a-z]/i"
    elements.username.options.validators.strlen.validator = "StringLength"
    elements.username.options.validators.strlen.options.min = "5"

Bringing it all together, the following is the first version of my login form.

    [login]
    ; General Form Information
    login.action = "login/submit"
    login.method = "post"
    login.id = "login"
 
    ; Form Decorators
    login.decorators.elements.decorator = "FormElements"
    login.decorators.table.decorator = "HtmlTag"
    login.decorators.table.options.tag = "table"
    login.decorators.form.decorator = "Form"
 
    ; Username Element
    login.elements.username.type = "text"
    login.elements.username.options.label = "Username:"
    login.elements.username.options.required = true
    login.elements.username.options.validators.alnum.validator = "alnum"
    login.elements.username.options.validators.regex.validator = "regex"
    login.elements.username.options.validators.regex.options.pattern = "/^[a-z]/i"
    login.elements.username.options.validators.strlen.validator = "StringLength"
    login.elements.username.options.validators.strlen.options.min = "5"
 
    ; Password Element
    login.elements.password.type = "password"
    login.elements.password.options.label = "Password:"
    login.elements.password.options.required = true
    login.elements.password.options.validators.strlen.validator = "StringLength"
    login.elements.password.options.validators.strlen.options.min = "6"
 
    ; Submit Form Element
    login.elements.submit.type = "submit"
    login.elements.submit.options.label = "Submit"
 
    login.elementDecorators.viewHelper = "ViewHelper"
    login.elementDecorators.errors = "Errors"
 
    login.elementDecorators.tableData.decorator.td = "HtmlTag"
    login.elementDecorators.tableData.options.tag = "td"
    login.elementDecorators.tableData.options.class = "test2"
 
    login.elementDecorators.label.decorator = "Label"
    login.elementDecorators.label.options.tag = "td"
 
    login.elementDecorators.tableRow.decorator.tr = "HtmlTag"
    login.elementDecorators.tableRow.options.tag = "tr"

This creates a login form with a username and password field along with a submit button. However, instead of being wrapped in a definition list using definition titles for labels and definition data for input fields, I have wrapped the labels and input fields within a table similar to the google login form. Notice though, that I have sectioned this form using [login]. Tthis is so that I can define all my necessary forms in one forms.ini file and load each form by section. I have also prepended each declaration with login. as a way to keep my form definitions organized and easy to read (to me at least).

Concluding this guide, I would like to reiterate, how useful I think Zend_Form is as it solves one of the most tedious process for any PHP project; form creation and validation. I hope it continues to evolve and mature, and I hope others find it as handy as I have. Although, if anyone has an easier solution, please let me know.