Redo The Web

Faker 1.4 is Released

Six months after the previous release, here is a better and improved Faker! 36 different developers contributed to this release, whether to add more locales, fix bugs, or to push new features.

New Features

Real Text Generator

I’ve already blogged about it, and this is the major highlight of Faker 1.4. Faker now offers a realTest formatter, based on Markov Chains, to generate “almost understandable” text for your preferred locale.

<?php
$faker = Faker\Factory::create('en_US');
echo $faker->realText(); // generates a random string of 200 characters at most

Alice, as the jury had a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the effect of lying down with wonder at the stick, and held out its arms folded, frowning like a telescope. And so it was.

Slug Formatter

Need more than a domain name? Now the url formatter includes random slugs. And you can generate unique slugs quite easily by combining the unique() modifier together with the new slug formatter:

<?php
echo $faker->url;
// 'http://www.skilesdonnelly.biz/aut-accusantium-ut-architecto-sit-et.html'
echo $faker->unique()->slug;
// 'aut-repellat-commodi-vel-itaque-nihil-id-saepe-nostrum'

First Name Gender Methods

The firstName formatter is great, but sometimes you want more control - for instance if other fake data for a given person depends on their sex. Now you can generate gender specific first names easily;

<?php
echo $faker->firstNameMale;    // 'Maynard'
echo $faker->firstNameFemale;  // 'Rachel'

More Network Formatters

The Internet provider was completed to offer all the network information you may need to generate.

<?php
echo $faker->ipv4;       // '109.133.32.252'
echo $faker->localIpv4;  // '10.242.58.8'
echo $faker->ipv6;       // '8e65:933d:22ee:a232:f1c1:2741:1f10:117c'
echo $faker->macAddress; // '43:85:B7:08:10:CA'

Local File Provider

The new file formatter copies a random file from a given directory to the target directory, and returns the fullpath or filename. That’s a great way to create random attachements to your fixtures.

<?php
echo $faker->file($sourceDir = '/tmp', $targetDir = '/tmp');
// '/path/to/targetDir/13b73edae8443990be1aa8f1a483bc27.jpg'
echo $faker->file($sourceDir, $targetDir, false);
// '13b73edae8443990be1aa8f1a483bc27.jpg'

EAN Barcode Provider

Need to generate a barcode? Faker’s got you covered.

<?php
echo $faker->ean13; // '4006381333931'
echo $faker->ean8;  // '73513537'

New Locales

4 new locales appear in this release. That makes a total of 42 locales covered by Faker! If yours is missing, please submit a pull request.

  • bn_BD Bengali (masnun)
  • fr_CA French Canadian (marcaube)
  • hu_HU Hungarian (sagikazarmark)
  • me_ME Montenegrian (ognjenm)

In addition, existing locales were developped, harmonized, and tested.

And of course, there are all the locale specific formatters (see the Readme) for more details.

  • cs_CZ\Address (region)
  • cs_CZ\Company (ico)
  • cs_CZ\DateTime (monthNameGenitive, formattedDate)
  • da_DK\Person (cpr)
  • da_DK\Address (kommune, region)
  • da_DK\Company (cvr, p)
  • fr_FR\Company (siren, siret)
  • fr_FR\Address (departmentName, departmentNumber, department, region)
  • ja_JP\Person (kanaName, firstKanaName, lastKanaName)
  • pl_PL\Person (pesel, personalIdentityNumber, taxpayerIdentificationNumber)
  • pl_PL\Company (regon, regonLocal)
  • pl_PL\Payment (bank, bankAccountNumber)
  • pt_PT\Person (taxpayerIdentificationNumber)
  • ro_RO\Person (cnp)
  • ro_RO\PhoneNumber (tollFreePhoneNumber, premiumRatePhoneNumber)

Complete Changelog

Faker 1.4 also brings a few performance improvements, bugfixes and minor changes. The complete changelog is available on GitHub - you may also want to see the compare view.

Upgrading

Faker uses composer, so all you have to do is to change the version requirement in your composer.json, as follows:

{
  "require": {
    "fzaninotto/faker": "1.4.*"
  }
}

Thank You All

I wanted to tell you how deeply fond of the Faker community I am. So many contributors with such great ideas give their time to enhance and extend the Fake data generator for PHP.

So I decided to write a poem for all Faker developers. Faker users can feel concerned, too!

English, who wanted leaders,

And had been of late much accustomed

Ao usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar,

The earls of Mercia and Northumbria –

”’ ‘Ugh!’ said the Gryphon, and,

taking Alice by the whole pack of cards:

The Knave ‘Turn them over!’

The Knave shook his head sadly.

‘Do I look like it?’ he said.

(Which he certainly did NOT, being made entirely of cardboard.)

‘All right, so far,’ said the Gryphon,

And, taking Alice by the soldiers,

Who of course you know why it’s called a.

Published on 05 Jun 2014 with tags faker php

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