Core Php Programming: Using Php to Build Dynamic Web Sites - Softcover

Atkinson, Leon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0130893986 ISBN 13: 9780130893987

Publisher: Pearson P T R, 2000

Synopsis

Core PHP Programming, Second Edition is the first complete, practical guide to PHP 4 for experienced Web developers. Fully updated to reflect PHP 4.0's breakthrough features and performance, it covers every technique you need to build robust, fast Web applications. Leading PHP developer Leon Atkinson starts with a high-level overview of PHP: how it evolved, and how it appears to the developer. Next, Atkinson reviews the key building blocks of PHP scripts, including variables, operators, and expressions; conditional branches and loops. Review every PHP function, including I/O, data, and math functions; time, date, configuration, database, graphics, and network functions. Core PHP Programming, Second Edition also contains detailed coverage of effective program design and debugging. For all Web developers and system administrators.

About this title

Review

Revised for PHP version 4, the new edition of Core PHP Programming is a comprehensive tutorial and reference to one of today's hottest scripting languages. Part tutorial and part reference, this book will get beginners started with PHP, as well as provide a convenient desktop resource for more experienced PHP developers.

Early sections show what PHP is and how it works, with basic data types, flow control, and other topics you'll need to get started. But the heart of the book is a full reference to PHP 4 functions. Organized by topic, this text provides over 400 pages of reference to several hundred PHP calls, along with a description of what they do. Clearly organized and presented, this book will help you find what you need quickly (instead of relying on PHP's often cumbersome online help). In particular, readers will appreciate the coverage of database functions, including the separate calls for MySQL, ODBC, and Oracle. You'll also see what PHP can do with XML.

The last part of the book reverts to tutorial mode, first with a section on algorithms that discusses ways to sort and search PHP arrays. Final sections look at some strategies you can use to integrate PHP into the software design process, in which the strategies of combining HTML content with dynamic PHP scripts are shown. There is also useful advice for increasing performance with PHP. (It would seem that upgrading to PHP 4 is a must, because the new version offers a real performance boost.)

PHP is clearly a popular choice for Web applications today. If you buy just one book on PHP, consider Core PHP Programming. It offers an approachable tutorial that will put basic PHP script development into the hands of beginners, and provides a useful reference for everyday development once you've gotten a handle on how to use it. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• History and introduction to PHP
• Installing PHP on Apache/Unix and IIS/NT
• PHP script basics
• PHP language tutorial (including data types, variables, and operators)
• Flow control statements
• PHP functions (arguments, recursion, and dynamic function calls)
• Single and multidimensional arrays
• PHP classes
• Creating Web pages in PHP
• Environment variables
• File uploads and file I/O
• PHP session management
• PHP function reference
• I/O functions (including files and compressed files, session handling, network I/O, and FTP)
• Data functions (including arrays, hashing, strings, and regular expressions)
• Mathematical functions
• Date and time functions
• Image functions
• Database functions (including support for MySQL, ODBC, Oracle, and Postgres)
• Miscellaneous functions (including XML functions)
• Algorithms for sorting and searching in PHP
• Parsing and tokenizing strings
• Database programming how-to
• Authenticating
• Sending e-mail
• Software engineering basics with PHP
• Integrating PHP and HTML
• Using CVS for version control
• Optimization hints

From the Back Cover

• Master PHP 4 — the open source Web scripting breakthrough
• Contains expert coverage of syntax, functions, design, and debugging
• Leverage the amazing performance of the new Zend engine!
• 650+ real-world code examples
• CD-ROM includes source code, plus everything you'll need to run PHP 4 implementations on Windows and UNIX

Foreword by Andi Gutmans

Praise for the first edition:

Core PHP Programming has proved itself an invaluable technical reference. I highly recommend it for beginners as well, since the official PHP manual often assumes too much knowledge on behalf of the user. Leon's strength is that he does not try to sound more technical than needed, simply for the sake of impressing other programmers. In short, a must-have for any PHP user, beginning or advanced!
—Zack Beatty, Enterprise Web Engineer

The experienced developer's guide to PHP!

Master PHP 4, the open source, high-performance, cross-platform solution for server-side scripting!

Core PHP Programming, Second Edition is the #1 practical guide to PHP 4 for Web developers. With the guidance of top PHP developer Leon Atkinson, you'll learn everything you'll need to build robust, fast Web applications — and deploy them on leading Web servers, from Apache to Microsoft Internet Information Server.

Atkinson covers PHP syntax, the key building blocks of PHP scripts, and every PHP function, including I/O, data, and math functions, time, date, configuration, database, graphics, and network functions. He presents PHP at work in sample code that demonstrates sorting, searching, parsing, string evaluation, and more. You'll even find detailed, real-world insights into PHP 4 program design and debugging!

Core PHP Programming delivers

• Thorough, easy-to-understand coverage of PHP syntax and functions
• Step-by-step guidance for PHP database integration
• Design and optimization techniques for maximum performance and extensibility
• Practical debugging solutions

CD-ROM includes PHP 4 source code and Windows binaries plus all the code examples from the book!

About this edition

• Publisher: Pearson P T R
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0130893986
• ISBN 13: 9780130893987
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 769