Why there should be a difference? Because my original version used create_function, which… created a whole new function object every time you used one of the class’s methods. This was very memory expensive and even incurred a slight performance hit.

The new version uses PHP 5.3′s anonymous functions to create more readable code in addition to reducing memory consumption and execution time.

As usual, the source code is under the WTFPL for you to enjoy without any restrictions.

<?php
 
/**
 * @class Path
 *
 * @brief Utility class that handles file and directory pathes
 *
 * This class handles basic important operations done to file system paths.
 * It safely renders relative pathes and removes all ambiguity from a relative path.
 *
 * @author Liran Nuna
 */
final class Path
{
	/**
	 * Returns the parent path of this path.
	 * "/path/to/directory" will return "/path/to"
	 *
	 * @arg $path	The path to retrieve the parent path from
	 */
	public static function dirname($path) {
		return dirname(self::normalize($path));
	}
 
	/**
	 * Returns the last item on the path.
	 * "/path/to/directory" will return "directory"
	 *
	 * @arg $path	The path to retrieve the base from
	 */
	public static function basename($path) {
		return basename(self::normalize($path));
	}
 
	/**
	 * Normalizes the path for safe usage
	 * This function does several operations to the given path:
	 *   * Removes unnecessary slashes (///path//to/////directory////)
	 *   * Removes current directory references (/path/././to/./directory/./././)
	 *   * Renders relative pathes (/path/from/../to/somewhere/in/../../directory)
	 *
	 * @arg $path	The path to normalize
	 */
	public static function normalize($path) {
		return array_reduce(explode('/', $path), function($a, $b) {
			if($a === 0)
				$a = "/";
 
			if($b === "" || $b === ".")
				return $a;
 
			if($b === "..")
				return dirname($a);
 
			return preg_replace("/\/+/", "/", "$a/$b");
		}, 0);
	}
 
	/**
	 * Combines a list of pathes to one safe path
	 *
	 * @arg $root	The path or array with values to combine into a single path
	 * @arg ...		Relative pathes to root or arrays
	 *
	 * @note		This function works with multi-dimentional arrays recursively.
	 */
	public static function combine($root, $rel1) {
		$arguments = func_get_args();
		return self::normalize(array_reduce($arguments, function($a,$b) {
			if(is_array($a))
				$a = array_reduce($a, 'Path::combine');
			if(is_array($b))
				$b = array_reduce($b, 'Path::combine');
 
			return "$a/$b";
		}));
	}
 
	/**
	 * Empty, private constructor, to prevent instantiation
	 */
	private function __construct() {
		// Prevents instantiation
	}
}

CodeMirror is a real-time code editor for your browser. I know that diff isn’t a format edited by humans, but I found myself needing the diff syntax highlight where other code is shown.
More on that soon.

Live Example, Download the parser.

libellen also recieved an official svn repository, incorporating this patch. Get libellen latest sources from svn using:

svn co http://svn.liranuna.com/libellen/trunk ellen

Current revision is 4, so this release is named libellen r4.

First I would like to start with the fact that this demo was lying around in my HDD since Halloween.

This demo was written to demonstrate how easy it is to utilize the DS’s hardware blending and create impressive effects with no effort. In this demo, the witch is flying in the sky, and whenever she’s hovering between the moon, she turns black, because the light from the moon illusions it as such.

The demo is composed of 2 backgrounds and a sprite. the sprite is set to blend with the first background (the moon) with 0 blending, resulting the black color.

Download: blending-demo.

Ever since the latest Rhythmbox release, there has been an undocumented feature in rhythmbox-client to print the string received from shoutcast streams, such as my favorite di.fm radio, which I normally have on. I found several xchat-rhythmbox announcers but they all lacked the ability to determine if rhythmbox currently streams music or listens to a music file.

Now that I actually have free time, I could write a small script to do exactly what I wanted, and I’ve decided to share it. The source/script is released under the terms of the WTFPL.

Download link: rhythmbox_nowplaying.tar.gz.

The impossible happened! I actually took some time to clean up and resolve the libellen-libnds collision problems, while also transforming libellen to the traditional library.a file. I also added very primitive background handler – it works, but don’t count on it.

Download it HERE.

Please remember that the source code and library (and everything inside the zip archive) is released under the terms of the WTFPL.

Since I’m not going to do any further development on this (for various reasons), I have decided to release libellen – a sprite handling library for the Nintendo DS, based on libnds.

The library is released under the terms of the WTFPL.

The source and “example” are super documented, and evena  Doxyfile is attached if you want to create documentations.
The library was tested and compiled using devkitARM r21 with god-knows-what libnds version. If you find incompatibilities, I’ll be happy if YOU would fix them.

Have fun and happy coding!

For those who are intrigued by the name – lib-ell-en (L – N, my name’s initials) could also be read as libellen – dutch for “Dragonfly” which is what the logo is based on. For those who wonder, the logo is also released under the terms of the WTFPL.

Some history:
libellen was first made as the low-level library for ToD2, but was quickly got good enough to be expended. My second goal was also to get people to stop using PAlib, an old, slow and deprecated library which people insisted on using. The library was not complete, but the sprite handling was. after more then 6 months of inactivity, I have decided to release the library to just handle sprites.

Source could be downloaded from HERE.

I hope lesson 4 would help people to see the hardware is not as frightening as they might think it is.

Lesson 4 is located HERE.

Download page is HERE.