I’ve had the pleasure of upgrading some old HTML files into a CMS with dynamic content. No problem! But what about all the search engine traffic that is still going to the old HTML pages? That stuff is gold and we don’t want to mess with redirecting it.

Only 4 lines in my .htaccess file is all I need!



RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule (.*)\.htm loadpage.php?$1


The code above can be explained as follows:

• RewriteEngine On
  This tells the web server to enable the mod_rewrite engine.
• RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  If an actual file exists with the name we are trying to mask, don’t mask it and proceed normally.
• RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  If an actual directory exists with the name we are trying to mask, don’t make it and proceed normally.
• RewriteRule (.*)\.htm loadpage.php?$1
  If the file you are masking ends in .htm*, then everything before the .htm* is stored in the $1 variable which is used as the QUERY STRING in our loadpage.php script.

Example:
I am trying to reach the page at http://www.yoursite.com/contact.html
My htaccess will check to see if a file or directory have the name “contact.html”. Assuming not, everything before the .htm* in “contact.html” will be stored in the $1 variable. So now our loadpage.php will be executed with the QUERY STRING of “contact”.

Our loadpage.php can now use the QUERY STRING as a “slug” or keyword to access your database to know what page to load.

A long time client of mine is using OpenCart, which is a favorite open source shopping cart. He acquired a USPS shipping label module that needed to be installed to make his life easier. Not sure if he had to pay for the module or not, but it needed a little tweaking before it would work properly…

Before I can even use the module, I need a User ID to use the USPS shipping API. Keep in mind this is DIFFERENT than the username to log into the USPS webtools. I go to the USPS Shipping API Registration page and create an account. I received an email with a User ID and Password to use with their API system (in addition to some API URLs to use for your XML communication). This is when I have to make the call to ICCC.

Surprisingly, when I called, it only took about 3 minutes from start to finish. The support tech asked a few simple questions and had my UserID enabled. After a simple test, I verified that I was able to connect to their production server.

NOTE: Don’t be surprised if you need to make more than one (1) phone call as I needed to so I could enable DeliveryConfirmationV3 for printing labels.

Now that I can connect to the USPS production server, I am ready to test. Lucky for me I have a lot of live data to test with. Lets do some tests!


https://secure.shippingapis.com/ShippingAPI.dll?API=DeliveryConfirmationV3&XML=<DeliveryConfirmationV3.0Request USERID="123XXXXX4567">
<Option>1</Option>
<ImageParameters />
<FromName>Herman Munster</FromName>
<FromFirm />
<FromAddress1>1313 Mockingbird Ln</FromAddress1>
<FromAddress2></FromAddress2>
<FromCity>Scaryville</FromCity>
<FromState>3624</FromState>
<FromZip5>91913</FromZip5>
<FromZip4></FromZip4>
<ToName>Homer Simpson</ToName>
<ToFirm></ToFirm>
<ToAddress1>742 Evergreen Terrace</ToAddress1>
<ToAddress2></ToAddress2>
<ToCity>Springfield</ToCity>
<ToState>State</ToState>
<ToZip5>90210</ToZip5>
<ToZip4></ToZip4>
<WeightInOunces>32</WeightInOunces>
<ServiceType>Priority</ServiceType>
<POZipCode></POZipCode>
<ImageType>PDF</ImageType>
<LabelDate></LabelDate>
<CustomerRefNo></CustomerRefNo>
<AddressServiceRequested>False</AddressServiceRequested>
<SenderName></SenderName>
<SenderEMail></SenderEMail>
<RecipientName></RecipientName>
<RecipientEMail></RecipientEMail>
</DeliveryConfirmationV3.0Request>

* The XML above is using fictitious data.

When I send the above XML to the USPS Shipping API, I receive the following response:


<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Error><Number>-2147219078</Number><Source>DC_Respond.;SOLServerConfrm.DC_Respond</Source><Description>XML Missing From Address</Description><HelpFile></HelpFile><HelpContext>1000440</HelpContext></Error></code>


Missing From Address? I have a from address! WTF? I guess I needed to do a little more RTFM. To my discovery, <FromAddress1> should be the SECOND line of the address (IE. Suite 2B, Apt 3, Unit 12) and <FromAddress2> should be the FIRST line of the address (IE. 1313 Mockingbird Ln, 1060 W Addison) and is a required field of at least 1 character. Before you get too excited, you will need to do the same for <ToAddress1> and <ToAddress2>.

Ok, let me make a few changes and try again…


https://secure.shippingapis.com/ShippingAPI.dll?API=DeliveryConfirmationV3&XML=<DeliveryConfirmationV3.0Request USERID="123XXXXX4567">
<Option>1</Option>
<ImageParameters />
<FromName>Herman Munster</FromName>
<FromFirm />
<FromAddress1></FromAddress2>
<FromAddress2>1313 Mockingbird Ln</FromAddress2>
<FromCity>Scaryville</FromCity>
<FromState>3624</FromState>
<FromZip5>91913</FromZip5>
<FromZip4></FromZip4>
<ToName>Homer Simpson</ToName>
<ToFirm></ToFirm>
<ToAddress1></ToAddress1>
<ToAddress2>742 Evergreen Terrace</ToAddress2>
<ToCity>Springfield</ToCity>
<ToState>State</ToState>
<ToZip5>90210</ToZip5>
<ToZip4></ToZip4>
<WeightInOunces>32</WeightInOunces>
<ServiceType>Priority</ServiceType>
<POZipCode></POZipCode>
<ImageType>PDF</ImageType>
<LabelDate></LabelDate>
<CustomerRefNo></CustomerRefNo>
<AddressServiceRequested>False</AddressServiceRequested>
<SenderName></SenderName>
<SenderEMail></SenderEMail>
<RecipientName></RecipientName>
<RecipientEMail></RecipientEMail>
</DeliveryConfirmationV3.0Request>


Survey says?!….

<?xml version=”1.0″?>
<DeliveryConfirmationV3.0Response><DeliveryConfirmationNumber>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</DeliveryConfirmationNumber><DeliveryConfirmationLabel>JVBERi0xLjI…………..</DeliveryConfirmationLabel><ToName>Homer Simpson</ToName><ToFirm></ToFirm><ToAddress1></ToAddress1><ToAddress2>742 EVERGREEN TERRACE</ToAddress2><ToCity>SPRINGFIELD</ToCity><ToState>XX</ToState><ToZip5>90210</ToZip5><ToZip4>XXXX</ToZip4><Postnet>90210XXXX</Postnet></DeliveryConfirmationV3.0Response>

B-E-A utiful! Finally it works.

Remember to test, test, test. I found that using a pound symbol (#) in an address when referencing an apartment, is bad. You can change the pound sign (#) to the word "UNIT" in your XML.

Using the USPS XML APIs are probably a never-ending battle. But the more you work at it the better/easier it will get.

The server wasn’t lying. When I did a PCRE check…

Alas, I did not have UTF8 support. Son of a … I downloaded the latest pcre source. When compiling I made sure to enable UTF8:

Ok cool. Now I have the latest PCRE installed WITH UTF8 support. Now I can recompile PHP. Wait a second… where the hell is my PHP source? Oh that’s right, I am on a server with everything pre-installed. Son of a … I’ve installed PHP hundreds of times over the years, so one more shouldn’t be an issue. Thankfully, the only prerequisite was PSPELL. Once PSPELL was installed, I could compile PHP with everything I need, or didn’t.

I backed up my modules/libphp5.so before running make install as a just in case. Guess what!? I needed it because for some reason I had compiled PHP with ‘–without-mysql’. *smacks self*

So I revert to my older libphp5.so and restart apache. Yay, I get to run my PHP compile again. I know, I know… make clean.

Finally, my PHP is updated along with PCRE and PSPELL. Now to check ALL of my hosted sites to make sure everything works. Uh oh… a few of my WordPress sites aren’t working. To the error_logs, Batman!

Serioulsy? Come on people… No one wants a little single quote floating around on a line by itself. After cleaning up the calendar.php file, all of my sites are up and running.

All of this just to install CodeIgniter…