Zend Framework (ZF) is an application developed by Zend Technologies Ltd, an infrastructure company specializing in software development. By nature, ZF is an open source application; with Zend Technologies’ granted licensing, its source code can be freely manipulated to the owner’s specifications.
Background
The company was co-founded by Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans, both of whom were responsible for contributing the majority of the program’s vital source code. Since its development, the company has gained a number of high-profile technology partners such as Adobe and IBM.
Specifications and Features
The application’s features range from the implementing of MVC and the composing emails. The application was specially designed to be entirely CLA-free, which was arranged in order to minimize the chance of commercial users experiencing any problematic issues with intellectual property.
The application was made with Representational State Transfer (REST) and Remote Procedure Call (RPC) services; with these two services, users may make use of Zend Apigility for the development of several potentially useful solutions, according to TechTarget. Some of the solutions made possible with the implementation of Zend Apigility include Easy Modification and API Authentication.
ZF can be made to work in tandem with Zen Studio, and IDE that possesses features ranging from parameter assist to code formatting. Facilities for diagnostics and the ability to monitor applications, along with caching and the acceleration of opcodes, are some of the advantages to ZF made available by the Zend Server.
As an open source solution, ZF’s licensing specifically adheres to the regulations of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) New BSD License terms.
Vendor and Database Support
The application is built to provide stable support for a variety of different vendors and database systems. Some of the various database systems that ZF can provide support for include MySQL, Informix Dynamic Server, IBM DB2 and PostgreSQL.
Running Requirements
In order for the application to run, ZF’s 1.7 iteration requires the operating system to have either PHP 5.2.4 or later. In the past, the application was capable of being executed with only PHP 5.1.4. The 2.0 model of ZF will only be capable of running with PHP 5.3.3.
Any PHP stack that has been designed with the proper assortment of technical specifications can successfully serve as a foundation for ZF. On the main Zend website, Zend Debug and Eclipse can be acquired at no costs – both of these PHP stack servers are compatible with the Zend server and can suit the needs of developers who are in search of alternatives.
Unit Tests and Caching Support
All packages of ZF are provided with the inclusion of a number of specific unit tests, and these tests may only be executed with PHPUnit 3.0. The application features a sub-system that provides support for caching a number of different file system backends.
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Conclusion
Zend Framework’s crash contingencies and anti-bug defense capability make program writing and test building slightly more efficient. The 1.x version of ZF is still being actively maintained by the developers, though the 2.x version is that its main contributors recommend that most consumers use.
