After a rather long break ABunchOfUtils is back with a site refresh.
As well as an updated interface a lot has changed behind the scenes that will allow for more frequent updates in the future.
Throughout the course of 2013 there will be new utilities added and enhancements made to existing ones.
At least, that's the plan...!
Another new util - this one helps you build date format strings. The new Date format helper produces format strings suitable for the PHP "date" function and the MySQL "DATE_FORMAT" function.
It works by allowing you to provide a sample date in the format you require which is then used to generate a format string that will format all input dates in the same manner. The format string and a short code sample is shown in the result.
The periodical option (every x minutes) on the Cron expression helper now has the added flexibility to restrict the job to particular days. For example, you can now get the Cron expression for a job that runs every 20 minutes on weekdays only. Leave the day option on "every day" for the same functionality as before.
In addition, an issue that resulted in incorrect results for certain inputs using the time-frame option has been fixed. The util now correctly deals with time-frames such as 3am-2am (a 23 hour period) or time-frames that pass through midnight such as 11pm-2am.
Added a new util: a Binary/Octal/Decimal/Hex converter. This converts values to and from any of the supported formats.
Where it makes sense each util now has the option to show the output as a hex dump. This can be useful if you need to view the output byte-for-byte rather than as a character representation.
In the standard output, non-printable characters are now shown using a placeholder character (�) to make it easier to see what's going on.
Also, a new util has been added; a Base64 encoder and decoder. Since this is often used with binary data the above enhancements make this new util extra useful.