IMDBPHP FAQ

Do I have to install/compile imdbphp?

You might have been confused by the doc/install.txt file, describing the installation with make. Even though make can be used to install (and uninstall) IMDBPHP, there is nothing to compile - since, as you know, PHP is a script language which "compiles" at runtime. So you may as well use the "old-fashioned" way described in doc/README, and simply unpack the archive. Most likely you will prefer this way when your website provider didn't grant you ssh access, and your only way is called ftp. For details on how to install IMDBPHP, please see the Installation page.

Caching seems not to work

This is usually caused by not reading the installation instructions. You probably only downloaded the .tar.gz variant of the distribution, unpacked it, and then just started using it. Please check that you configured the cache directory correctly (see Caching Options for more details).

There are no images displayed

Same issue as with the cache above. Please make sure your image directory is configured correctly (see Image Options for details).

The program misses to display some details

Looks like you misunderstood something: This is no program, but an API - a library for developer. What looks to you like a program, is just an example of the APIs usage. So if there are not all details displayed for a movie with imdb.php, this is as-designed: It is simply not intended to use all available methods here, but only to show you how it can be done. If you are looking for a program doing all this for you, you either must write it yourself using this API - or look at a different place for a complete program. There are some projects using this API, and probably some others as well.

API is suddenly broken

The API worked perfectly for months - and now it suddenly is broken? Oh well, the code lives I mean, the code of the IMDB sites. Since IMDBPHP parses the HTML source of those pages, changes to the IMDB site often has more or less heavy side-effects to its results. So after most site changes, we have to check and fix our API. This is nothing to worry about too much - if you tap into such a trap, simply open a new ticket here and report (but please check before that exactly this case has not been reported just a few minutes before , since the authors may not always be aware.

IMDBPHP seems to return the wrong main genre

Yepp - agreed, it does. Sometimes. Or even most times. But we cannot do anything against this: IMDB.COM just gives a list of genres associated with the movie, and has this list in alphabetical order. So the genre() method simply returns the first mentioned genre - chances that this is the real main genre are about 1:3 to 1:5 (depending on whether there are 3 or 5 genres associated). If somebody has an idea how to retrieve the real main genre, we are open to new ideas!

Why doesn't the API reference list properties?

The API reference only lists methods, but no properties - with the exception of the configuration class. The reason why the properties are not mentioned there is simple: You should not reference them directly - consider them all to be private, and use the listed methods to retrieve the data. The policy not only in this project is: Public methods/properties (i.e. those explicitly listed in the API reference without being marked private) should always be downwards compatible when a new version is released, while private methods/properties may be subject to change. So to avoid problems on a future update, stick to the public stuff.

Is there an Update Notifier for new releases?

So you don't want to miss a release? No problem. You have several options:

• Using a Debian or RPM based Linux distribution, you can include the  APT/YUM Repository in your APT/YUM configuration. More information can be found following the link.
• If you are a  Freshmeat member, you can subscribe to the  IMDBPHP project there, and receive an email on every release. Please, don't forget to rate the project!
• Similar steps apply to  SourceForge: You can subscribe to the  IMDBPHP project there, and an email will be sent to you on every update
• You can subscribe to the IzzySoft RSS Newsfeed to have the always latest release information for all IzzySoft projects
• You can subscribe to the projects Timeline RSS feed to see all changes (including releases)
• Not enough? Version junkie? You also can checkout the latest development code from the SVN repository (see below), and create a scheduler (e.g. Cron) job to update that copy regularly

How can I check out the latest development code?

Sometimes you may not want to wait for the next release to appear - either since there is a new feature you immediately want to use, or some minor bugfix which affects you and is not yet released. Or you are simply a version junkie Never mind: You always can check out the latest development code anonymously with Subversion:

  svn co http://projects.izzysoft.de/repos/imdbphp/trunk

If you want the latest code in order to supply YOUR changes - i.e. you want to take place in development, you better contact the author as mentioned in the documentation - since the above mentioned link to the repository is read-only…