// should return memory limit in MB
        $mem_limit = (int) ini_get('memory_limit');
        if ($mem_limit < 32) {
            // We do *not* need to save the original value here, since we don't plan to restore
            // this after shutdown (we don't trust the effectiveness of PHP's garbage collection).
            ini_set('memory_limit', '32M'); // nore: this may need to be higher for many projects
        }

contained this interesting bit of code, so (int) ini_get('memory_limit') return 1 instead of something more sensible. Pretty failsome way to detect how much memory is allocated, assuming the entire world would be setting the memory in megabytes. Why is our php.ini set to 1G is another story.

$ pear channel-discover pear.phpunit.de
$ sudo pear install phpunit/PHPUnit

I am after 3.4.0 as phing absolutely/definitely wants that version for the whole thing to work. Here’s a quite note-to-self on how to get around that.

Download the latest package that needs to be installed from http://pear.phpunit.de/ and then run the command manually.

p@localhost:~/cfarm$ sudo pear install --alldeps PHPUnit-3.4.12.tgz
WARNING: "pear/DB" is deprecated in favor of "pear/MDB2"
phpunit/PHPUnit can optionally use PHP extension "pdo_sqlite"
pear/Log can optionally use PHP extension "sqlite"
downloading Log-1.12.0.tgz ...
Starting to download Log-1.12.0.tgz (44,555 bytes)
............done: 44,555 bytes
downloading YAML-1.0.3.tgz ...
Starting to download YAML-1.0.3.tgz (9,794 bytes)
...done: 9,794 bytes
downloading DB-1.7.13.tgz ...
Starting to download DB-1.7.13.tgz (132,246 bytes)
...done: 132,246 bytes
downloading MDB2-2.4.1.tgz ...
Starting to download MDB2-2.4.1.tgz (119,790 bytes)
...done: 119,790 bytes
downloading Mail-1.2.0.tgz ...
Starting to download Mail-1.2.0.tgz (23,214 bytes)
...done: 23,214 bytes
downloading Net_SMTP-1.4.2.tgz ...
Starting to download Net_SMTP-1.4.2.tgz (11,826 bytes)
...done: 11,826 bytes
downloading Net_Socket-1.0.9.tgz ...
Starting to download Net_Socket-1.0.9.tgz (5,173 bytes)
...done: 5,173 bytes
downloading Auth_SASL-1.0.4.tgz ...
Starting to download Auth_SASL-1.0.4.tgz (5,795 bytes)
...done: 5,795 bytes
install ok: channel://pear.phpunit.de/PHPUnit-3.4.12
install ok: channel://pear.php.net/Log-1.12.0
install ok: channel://pear.symfony-project.com/YAML-1.0.3
install ok: channel://pear.php.net/DB-1.7.13
install ok: channel://pear.php.net/MDB2-2.4.1
install ok: channel://pear.php.net/Mail-1.2.0
install ok: channel://pear.php.net/Net_Socket-1.0.9
install ok: channel://pear.php.net/Auth_SASL-1.0.4
install ok: channel://pear.php.net/Net_SMTP-1.4.2
....

PHing Is Not GNU make; it’s a project build system based on Apache Ant. You can do anything with it that you could do with a traditional build system like GNU make, and its use of simple XML build files and extensible PHP “task” classes make it an easy-to-use and highly flexible build framework. Features include file transformations (e.g. token replacement, XSLT transformation, Smarty template transformations), file system operations, interactive build support, SQL execution, CVS operations, tools for creating PEAR packages, and much more.

So talking about synchronization, there is an interesting task called “FileSyncTask” for Unix systems which synchronizes files and directories from one location to another while minimizing data transfer. FileSyncTask can copy or display directory contents and copy files, optionally using compression and recursion.

FileSyncTask can be used to synchronize Website trees from staging to production servers and to backup key areas of the filesystems, which is exactly what I was after. So here’s additional information on how to go about it.

There are 4 different ways of using FileSyncTask:

• For copying local files.
• For copying from the local machine to a remote machine using a remote shell program as the transport (ssh).
• For copying from a remote machine to the local machine using a remote shell program.
• For listing files on a remote machine.

The SSH client called by FileSyncTask uses settings from the build.properties file:
[ini]
sync.source.projectdir=/home/development.com/public
sync.destination.projectdir=/home/staging.com
sync.remote.host=server.com
sync.remote.user=user
sync.destination.backupdir=/home/staging.com/backup
sync.exclude.file=/home/development.com/build/sync.exclude
[/ini]

Only listing files that have been modified

<taskdef name="sync" classname="phing.tasks.ext.FileSyncTask" />
<sync
    sourcedir="${sync.source.projectdir}"
    destinationdir="${sync.destination.projectdir}"
    listonly="true"
    verbose="true" />

Excluding files that dont need to be synchronized (config files etc)

*~
.svn
public/images/uploads/*
build/*
log/*
tmp

Copying files to a remote machine

<taskdef name="sync" classname="phing.tasks.ext.FileSyncTask" />
<sync
    sourcedir="${sync.source.projectdir}"
    destinationdir="${sync.remote.user}@${sync.remote.host}:${sync.destination.projectdir}"
    excludefile="${sync.exclude.file}"
    verbose="true" />

So here’s the directory structure of the configuration files

development.com
|-- build
|   |-- build.properties
|   |-- build.xml
|   |-- sync.exclude
|   `-- sync.properties
`-- public
    `-- index.php

Finally the build file
Phing runs using xml build files for directions on what tasks to run and other configuration parameters, here’s a sample one.

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<project name="example" basedir="." default="build">
<property name="version" value="1.0" />

<!-- Public targets -->
<target name="sync:list" description="List files">
  <phingcall target="-sync-execute-task">
    <property name="listonly" value="true" />
  </phingcall>
</target>

<target name="sync" description="Copy files">
  <phingcall target="-sync-execute-task">
    <property name="listonly" value="false" />
  </phingcall>
</target>

<!-- Private targets -->
<target name="-init" description="Load main settings">
  <tstamp />
  <property file="build.properties" />
</target>

<target name="-sync-execute-task" depends="-init">
  <property file="sync.properties" />
  <if>
    <not>
      <isset property="sync.verbose" />
    </not>
    <then>
      <property name="sync.verbose" value="true" override="true" />
      <echo message="The value of sync.verbose has been set to true" />
    </then>
  </if>
  <property name="sync.remote.auth" value="${sync.remote.user}@${sync.remote.host}" />
  <taskdef name="sync" classname="phing.tasks.ext.FileSyncTask" />
  <sync
    sourcedir="${sync.source.projectdir}"
    destinationdir="${sync.remote.auth}:${sync.destination.projectdir}"
    backupdir="${sync.remote.auth}:${sync.destination.backupdir}"
    excludefile="${sync.exclude.file}"
    listonly="${listonly}"
    verbose="${sync.verbose}" />
</target>
</project>

Now executing the task

$ phing sync:list

Which outputs

Buildfile: /home/development.com/build/build.xml
example > sync:list:
[phingcall] Calling Buildfile '/home/development.com/build/build.xml'
            with target '-sync-execute-task'

example > -init:
[property] Loading /home/development.com/build/build.properties

example > -sync-execute-task:
[property] Loading /home/development.com/build/sync.properties
[echo] The value of sync.verbose has been set to true

Execute Command
----------------------------------------
rsync -razv --list-only -b --backup-dir

Sync files to remote server
----------------------------------------
Source:        /home/development.com/public
Destination:   user@server.com:/home/staging.com
Backup:        user@server.com:/home/staging.com/backup

Exclude patterns
----------------------------------------
*~
.svn
.htaccess
public/index.development.php
public/images/uploads/*
build/*
log/*
tmp/*

(list of files that have changed)

BUILD FINISHED
Total time: 1.9763 second

Excellent stuff, just the kind of sync script you would like per project, symfony does a great job at synchronizing local and remote code as part of the project:deploy task and that has really spoilt me to look for similar ways for other projects.

Additional Reading:
http://www.fedecarg.com/wiki/FileSyncTask
http://phing.info/docs/guide/current/
Writing your own phing task