Spring Into PHP 5

The fastest route to true PHP mastery!

So...you've been asked to pitch in on a PHP project...starting now. Or maybe one's on the horizon. Or maybe you need to get real PHP skills onto your résumé. You've done web stuff. Maybe used other scripting languages. Now you want to get productive with PHP, fast.

Welcome. We wrote this book for you. We'll leverage what you already know, so you'll go further, faster than you ever expected.

You'll get the real nuts and bolts, not theory or hooey. You'll learn through dozens of focused examples: tested for reliability, crafted for clarity, easy to adapt for your own projects.

Need specific solutions? This book's modular, high-efficiency format delivers them—instantly. Award-winning author Steven Holzner draws on his unparalleled experience teaching programming: No other PHP guide covers this much, this well, this quickly. Dig in, get started, get results—today!

• All you need to succeed with PHP in Linux or Windows

• Master core concepts: operators, flow control, strings, arrays, functions, and more

• Learn essential web techniques: cookies, session management, automated email, FTP, and more

• Use PHP 5's object model and object-oriented techniques

• Efficiently handle text boxes, buttons, and other HTML controls

• Create web forms, validate user input, and check browsers

• Work with MySQL and other databases

Includes concise PHP 5 language and functional references!

All the book's programming examples are available for download on the companion web site.

Spring Into is a new series of fast-paced tutorials from Addison-Wesley. Each book in the series is designed to bring you up-to-speed quickly. Complex topics and technologies are reduced to their core components, and each component is treated with remarkable efficiency in one- or two-page spreads. Just the information you need to begin working...now! And because the books are example-rich and easy to navigate, you'll find that they make great on-the-job references after you've mastered the basics.

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Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful Comprehensive and wonderfully written!, August 1, 2005 By  Richard C. Mills "d12m3mbr" (Corvallis, OR) - See all my reviews    This review is from: Spring Into PHP 5 (Paperback) I've been programming in c/c++ and java for 6 years now and recently at work was asked to give a facelift to our intranet site. Without this book I do not think I would have been able to complete all the requested task in such a short amount of time. This is probably one of the most well written php books I've ever read. Steven Holzner did a perfect job bringing the nuts and bolts of PHP to the world in such a clear and concise manner. The books pace is perfect for a newbie into the PHP world and though technical is very easy to read and understand. Through this book I was able to give our intranet site an overhaul and add features to it in no time, leaving me plenty of time to focus on other projects. If you need a quick jump start into PHP programming look no further. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink  Comment 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful Great Starter, June 13, 2005 By  Randy Given (Manchester, CT USA) - See all my reviews    This review is from: Spring Into PHP 5 (Paperback) This book is a great starter. The approach is just as clear as the text is. It gets you into the meat of things right away, yet you don't feel overwhelmed. Yes, MySql is introduced towards the back and is hand-in-hand with PHP on almost every system that has one or the other. Your websites are bound to quickly become better looking, faster, and easier on resources. I wish I had gotten this book when I first started learning PHP. Great idea for new PHP developers and staff. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink  Comment 5 of 6 people found the following review helpful Good primer on PHP 5, May 26, 2005 By  John A. Suda (Rochester NY) - See all my reviews    This review is from: Spring Into PHP 5 (Paperback) "Spring Into PHP 5" is a primer on the latest version of the popular server-based scripting language, PHP. It is part of a new "Spring Into" series of books from Prentice Hall which intend to provide concise, fast-paced tutorials for new and developing technologies primarily for non-professionals and those professionals who need or want a quick and easy way to transition to new technology. The author, Steven Holzner, is a prolific writer on technology, having penned 88 programming books as well as being a contributor to PC Magazine. His intent here is to make a technological topic like PHP scripting accessible, especially for novices who have little familiarity with web-related language other than HTML. He states an intent to produce "as good a book on PHP as can be". This is a good book but lacks depth and completeness and does not cover many practical uses of PHP. There is minimal discussion of security issues. There are other publications which would complement this... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink  Comment

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Praise For Spring Into PHP 5

"This book is tight and well written. It's really well organized, with each topic covering just a couple of pages. Each topic is handled the same way - brief, clear explanation, great samples and more detail. If you're just learning, refreshing, or want a really useable reference, this is it. While the book on the whole was really great what surprised me was how well the section on object oriented PHP was handled. It didn't dumb down anything, didn't shield you from new terms, but defined them so quickly and simply, and showed such variety and quality of examples that it should be approachable by even those who have been scared off of OOP PHP in the past. I'd highly recommend this book." -- Josh McCormack, Member of New York PHP User Group

Online Sample Chapter

Handling Strings and Arrays in PHP

Index

Download the Index file related to this title.

Table of Contents

Preface.

About the Author.

About the Series Editor.

1. Essential PHP.

    Getting PHP.

    Setting Up Your Development Environment.

    Creating Your First PHP Script.

    Running Your First PHP Script.

    What If It Doesn’t Work?

    Mixing In Some HTML.

    How About Printing Out Some Text?

    More Printing Power.

    Printing “Here” Documents.

    Running PHP on the Command Line.

    Commenting Your Scripts.

    Getting a Handle on Data: Variables.

    Assigning Values to Variables.

    Interpolating Variables in Strings.

    Creating Variable Variables.

    Creating Constants.

    Handling Data Types.

    Summary.

2. Gaining Control with Operators and Flow Control.

    The Math Operators.

    The Math Functions.

    The Assignment Operators.

    Incrementing and Decrementing.

    Operator Precedence.

    The Execution Operator.

    String Operators.

    Bitwise Operators.

    Using if Statements.

    The Comparison Operators.

    Logical Operators.

    Using else Statements.

    Using elseif Statements.

    The Ternary Operator.

    Using switch Statements.

    Working with for Loops.

    Working with while Loops.

    Working with do...while Loops.

    Working with foreach Loops.

    Breaking Out of Loops.

    Skipping Interactions with continue.

    Some Alternative Syntax.

    Summary.

3. Handling Strings and Arrays.

    Listing of String Functions.

    Using the String Functions.

    Formatting Strings.

    Converting to and from Strings.

    Creating Arrays.

    Modifying Arrays.

    Removing Array Elements.

    Looping Over Arrays.

    Listing of the Array Functions.

    Sorting Arrays.

    Navigating through Arrays.

    Imploding and Exploding Arrays.

    Extracting Variables from Arrays.

    Merging and Splitting Arrays.

    Comparing Arrays.

    Manipulating the Data in Arrays.

    Creating Multidimensional Arrays.

    Looping Over Multidimensional Arrays.

    Using the Array Operators.

    Summary.

4. Breaking It Up: Functions.

    Creating a Function.

    Passing Data to Functions.

    Passing Arrays to Functions.

    Setting Up Default Argument Values.

    Passing Arguments by Reference.

    Creating Variable-Length Argument Lists.

    Returning Values from Functions.

    Returning Arrays from Functions.

    Returning Lists from Functions.

    Returning References from Functions.

    Using Variable Scope.

    Getting Global Access.

    Using Static Variables.

    Creating Variable Functions.

    Creating Conditional Functions.

    Creating Functions within Functions.

    Using Include Files.

    Handling Errors Returned by Functions.

    Summary.

5. Handling HTML Controls in Web Pages.

    Handling User Data with Web Forms.

    Creating Text Fields.

    Retrieving Data from Text Fields.

    Creating Text Areas.

    Creating Checkboxes.

    Creating Radio Buttons.

    Creating Listboxes.

    Creating Hidden Controls.

    Creating Password Controls.

    Creating Image Maps.

    Uploading Files.

    Reading Uploaded Files.

    Creating Buttons: Take 1.

    Creating Buttons: Take 2.

    Creating Buttons: Take 3.

    Summary.

6. Creating Web Forms and Validating User Input.

    Displaying All a Form’s Data At Once.

    Useful Server Variables.

    Useful HTTP Headers.

    Determining Browser Type with HTTP Headers.

    Redirecting Users with HTTP Headers.

    Receiving Form Data in Custom Arrays.

    Web Applications Using a Single PHP Page.

    Validating User Data.

    Validating Data: Requiring Data Entry.

    Validating Data: Checking for Numbers.

    Validating Data: Checking for Strings.

    Removing HTML Tags.

    Encoding HTML Tags.

    Preserving Data.

    Using JavaScript to Validate Data.

    Using HTTP Authentication.

    Summary.

7. Object Oriented Programming and File Handling.

    Working with Classes and Objects.

    Creating a Class.

    Creating an Object.

    Restricting Access to Properties and Methods.

    Initializing Objects with Constructors.

    Basing One Class on Another: Inheritance.

    Using Protected Inheritance.

    Overriding Methods.

    Accessing Base Class Methods.

    Opening a File: fopen.

    Reading Lines of Text: fgets.

    Reading Characters: fgetc.

    Binary Reading: fread.

    Reading a Whole File: file_get_contents.

    Parsing a File: fscanf.

    Writing to a File: fwrite.

    Appending to a File: fwrite.

    Writing the File at Once: file_put_contents.

    Summary.

8. Working with Databases.

    What Are Databases?

    Some Basic SQL.

    Setting Up Database Support in PHP.

    Creating a Database Using MySQL.

    Adding Data to the Database.

    Accessing a MySQL Database.

    Displaying a Data Table.

    Updating Your Data.

    Inserting New Data.

    Deleting Data.

    Creating a New Table.

    Creating a Database.

    Sorting Data.

    Getting the PEAR DB Module.

    Displaying a Table with DB.

    Inserting New Data with DB.

    Updating Data with DB.

    Summary.

9. Cookies, Sessions, FTP, Email, and More.

    Setting Cookies.

    Getting Cookies.

    Setting a Cookie’s Expiration Time.

    Deleting Cookies.

    Using FTP.

    FTP: Getting a Directory Listing.

    FTP: Downloading a File.

    FTP: Uploading a File.

    Sending Email.

    Sending Email with Headers.

    Sending Email with Attachments.

    Working with Sessions.

    Storing Session Data.

    Creating a Hit Counter.

    Using Sessions Without Cookies.

    Removing Data in Sessions.

    Summary.

Appendix A: PHP Language Elements.

Appendix B: PHP Function Reference.

Index.

Downloadable Sample Chapter

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Read an additional bonus chapter from this book