Programming PHP, 2/e (Paperback)

Description

As the industry standard book on PHP, all of the essentials are covered in a clear and concise manner. Language syntax and programming techniques are coupled with numerous examples that illustrate both correct usage and common idioms. With style tips and practical programming advice, this book will help you become not just a PHP programmer, but a good PHP programmer. Programming PHP, Second Edition covers everything you need to know to create effective web applications with PHP.

Programming PHP, Second Edition is the authoritative guide to PHP 5 and is filled with the unique knowledge of the creator of PHP (Rasmus Lerdorf) and other PHP experts. When it comes to creating websites, the PHP scripting language is truly a red-hot property. In fact, PHP is currently used on more than 19 million websites, surpassing Microsoft's ASP .NET technology in popularity. Programmers love its flexibility and speed; designers love its accessibility and convenience.

As the industry standard book on PHP, all of the essentials are covered in a clear and concise manner. Language syntax and programming techniques are coupled with numerous examples that illustrate both correct usage and common idioms. With style tips and practical programming advice, this book will help you become not just a PHP programmer, but a good PHP programmer. Programming PHP, Second Edition covers everything you need to know to create effective web applications with PHP. Contents include:

• Detailed information on the basics of the PHP language, including data types, variables, operators, and flow control statements
  
• Chapters outlining the basics of functions, strings, arrays, and objects
  
• Coverage of common PHP web application techniques, such as form processing and validation, session tracking, and cookies
  
• Material on interacting with relational databases, such as MySQL and Oracle, using the database-independent PEAR DB library and the new PDO Library
  
• Chapters that show you how to generate dynamic images, create PDF files, and parse XML files with PHP
  
• Advanced topics, such as creating secure scripts, error handling, performance tuning, and writing your own C language extensions to PHP
  
• A handy quick reference to all the core functions in PHP and all the standard extensions that ship with PHP
  

 

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

1. Introduction to PHP

     What Does PHP Do?

     A Brief History of PHP

     Installing PHP

     A Walk Through PHP

2. Language Basics

     Lexical Structure

     Data Types

     Variables

     Expressions and Operators

     Flow-Control Statements

     Including Code

     Embedding PHP in Web Pages

3. Functions

     Calling a Function

     Defining a Function

     Variable Scope

     Function Parameters

     Return Values

     Variable Functions

     Anonymous Functions

4. Strings

     Quoting String Constants

     Printing Strings

     Accessing Individual Characters

     Cleaning Strings

     Encoding and Escaping

     Comparing Strings

     Manipulating and Searching Strings

     Regular Expressions

     POSIX-Style Regular Expressions

     Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions

5. Arrays

     Indexed Versus Associative Arrays

     Identifying Elements of an Array

     Storing Data in Arrays

     Multidimensional Arrays

     Extracting Multiple Values

     Converting Between Arrays and Variables

     Traversing Arrays

     Sorting

     Acting on Entire Arrays

     Using Arrays

6. Objects

     Terminology

     Creating an Object

     Accessing Properties and Methods

     Declaring a Class

     Introspection

     Serialization

7. Web Techniques

     HTTP Basics

     Variables

     Server Information

     Processing Forms

     Setting Response Headers

     Maintaining State

     SSL

8. Databases

     Using PHP to Access a Database

     Relational Databases and SQL

     PEAR DB Basics

     Advanced Database Techniques

     Sample Application

9. Graphics

     Embedding an Image in a Page

     The GD Extension

     Basic Graphics Concepts

     Creating and Drawing Images

     Images with Text

     Dynamically Generated Buttons

     Scaling Images

     Color Handling

10. PDF

     PDF Extensions

     Documents and Pages

     Text

11. XML

     Lightning Guide to XML

     Generating XML

     Parsing XML

     Parsing XML with DOM

     Parsing XML with SimpleXML

     Transforming XML with XSLT

     Web Services

12. Security

     Filter Input

     Escape Output

     Cross-Site Scripting

     Session Fixation

     File Uploads

     File Access

     PHP Code

     Shell Commands

     More Information

     Security Recap

13. Application Techniques

     Code Libraries

     Templating Systems

     Handling Output

     Error Handling

     Performance Tuning

14. Extending PHP

     Architectural Overview

     What You'll Need

     Building Your First Extensions

     The config.m4 File

     Memory Management

     The pval/zval Data Type

     Parameter Handling

     Returning Values

     References

     Global Variables

     Creating Variables

     Extension INI Entries

     Resources

     Where to Go from Here

15. PHP on Windows

     Installing and Configuring PHP on Windows

     Writing Portable Code for Windows and Unix
     Interfacing with COM

     Interacting with ODBC Data Sources

A. Function Reference

B. Extension Overview

Index