What is uFlex?

uFlex is a PHP user authentication class.

Why try uFlex?

There are tons of PHP user authentication classes. As a PHP developer i don't want to waste nobody's time nor persuade anybody to use this class so i'll be straight forward. Here are some key features of uFlex:

• Flexible and extensible object oriented API to build your authentication system
• Handles custom fields thanks to its hybrid and dynamic field validation
• Built-in methods to handle the most common process in an authentication system like registration, updating info, password resets, account activation and more...
• Heavily tested and promptly updated with user FeedBack
• Its open source and well inline commented
• Built-in logging console, tracking every step, every error and every process. Phenomenal for debugging.
• Optimzed for AJAX use. For example: checking user availabilty as user type
• Built-in common hash generator plus homegrown integer encoder and decoder(more reliable than base64) to maximize hash security

What uFlex is not?

Like any PHP class uFlex is a tool not a script. Here is what uFlex doesn't do for you:

• It doesn't handle sending email, though it provides the required info for sending email. Like the hash for activating an account
• It doesn't have functions to globally manage users. Every method is focus in a current user and authenticated in a per user basis. You could build your own user management interface.

My initial thoughts were that if you are a Good developer you should have your own set of functions to handle database connection and emails. While it remains true, i realize that since the class uses SESSIONS the database connection was rarely needed. So since Version 0.86 the uFlex class handles its own database connection using PHP PDO. As a result the class can now stablish a database connection only when needed.