Rackspace Cloud is a great VPS service, but when I recently done a project it needed the functionality of uploading directly from a website to the cloud. I did not find many tutorials on how to do this, so I thought I'd write a tutorial on it myself.

Step 1: Download the required files

The files you will need for this are located at the Rackspace Cloud website here. You can download the API for PHP, Java, Python, .NET and Ruby. But for this tutorial we will be using PHP.

Step 2: Setup

When the download of the PHP API has complete decompress the file and rename it to cloudfiles. Now place the folder named cloudfiles in the directory where the PHP files will be stored that will upload to the Rackspace Cloud.

Step 3: Create an upload form

For this tutorial we will only be creating a basic upload form, but I have planned for a more advanced uploader with a progress bar and multiple file uploads for a future tutorial, so be sure to check back for that.

<form action="upload.php" enctype="multipart/form-data" method="POST">
File: <input name="upload" type="file" /> 
 
<input name="submit" type="submit" value="Upload To Rackspace!" />
</form>

Name this file upload.html

Step 4: Uploading to Rackspace Cloud

So what we need to do to upload to the Rackspace cloud is to include the PHP API, connect to Rackspace, get the container we want to use, create an object and then upload the file to that object.

<?php
// include the API
require('cloudfiles/cloudfiles.php');
 
// cloud info
$username = ""; // username
$key = ""; // api key
 
// Connect to Rackspace
$auth = new CF_Authentication($username, $key);
$auth->authenticate();
$conn = new CF_Connection($auth);
 
// Get the container we want to use
$container = $conn->get_container('ContainerName');
 
// store file information
$localfile = $_FILES['upload']['tmp_name'];
$filename = $_FILES['upload']['name'];
 
// upload file to Rackspace
$object = $container->create_object($filename);
$object->load_from_filename($localfile);
?>

Name this file upload.php.

Download

You can download the source files from here

Post a comment

Please post a comment and let us know if you have anything that you'd like to add to the tutorial or if you are having any problems.

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A few days ago I was developing a website for a client. They required that there be a map showing where addresses are that were retrieved from a database. I have never properly looked at the Google Maps API before because I have never needed to use it; so for the first time I looked at it and gave it a try. Then after playing around with it for a bit i realised that reverse geocoding was needed to convert the address into latitude and longitude figures.

Because I was programming this website in PHP I thought I would have a look around for a PHP class to see if there was a quicker way of doing this. Luckily enough I found a PHP class called PHP GoogleMapAPI. It took me a few minutes to read through the documentation for this class but it was so straight forward and simple. All in all it takes only 6 lines of code using this class to create a google map and locate it to an address; because it does all the other work for you that you don't need to know about if you're not going to be programming Google Maps every day of your life.

Implementing Google Maps on your website

The first thing you need to do is go to the website and download the class. Then copy it into the directory where you keep your classes stored on your server.

When you have downloaded the class, it then needs to be included in the file that we want to show the map in. At the top of your file insert the code below.

<?php
require('GoogleMapAPI.class.php');
$map = new GoogleMapAPI('map');
 
// enter YOUR Google Map Key
$map->setAPIKey('YOURGOOGLEMAPKEY');
 
$map->addMarkerByAddress('621 N 48th St # 6 Lincoln NE 68502','Our Address','<b>Our Address</b>');
 
<body onload="onLoad()">
 
    <?php $map->printMap(); ?>
 
</body>

What we are doing here is including the class with the require function in PHP. If the class fails to be included then the rest of the page will stop executing.
We then create a new instance of the class and then we insert.

If you have a Google Maps API key then insert it where it says 'YOURGOOGLEMAPKEY'. If you do not have one you can get one from here.

The function below adds a marker to the address you would like and centers it. This function takes 3 parameters; the address, a title and html.

$map->addMarkerByAddress();

We then need to include the onLoad function so that it knows to load the map on this page.

The last function that we add is

<?php $map->printMap(); ?>

Wherever you insert this function is where the map will be displayed on the page.

Let us know

I hope this tutorial has been useful and you have learned something new from it. Feel free to post a comment below and share your experience with this class or the Google Maps API.

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