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Books > Programming PHP

Programming PHP
Release Date	:	05 April, 2002
Author	:	Rasmus Lerdorf Kevin Tatroe
Publisher	:	O'Reilly UK
Catalog	:
Our Price	:	£ 28.50

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Coauthored by its creator, Programming PHP is a nitty-gritty guide to PHP development. PHP is an open-source scripting language used to build dynamic Web sites. In this title, the authors go step-by-step through the language, including brief coverage of common applications such as graphics or database work.

The first six chapters explain PHP essentials, including data types, functions, string manipulation, arrays and objects. Next comes a look at basic Web techniques, followed by an introduction to database access. There is a chapter on generating graphics with the GD extension library and another on creating Adobe PDF documents. The authors then show how to parse XML, and there is a section on security with some handy tips for protecting PHP sites. A chapter on application techniques looks at code libraries, performance tuning and handling errors. Next there is an explanation of how to build extensions to PHP using C, followed by a look at Windows issues such as COM and ODBC. Finally, there is a complete reference to the standard functions in PHP 4.0.

This is not an advanced programming book, but even experienced coders will discover new things about the language and get a clearer understanding of how PHP works. The specialist chapters such as those on XML or PHP extensions tend to be introductory, so readers will need further resources. For example, the database section is short, and would be best read alongside Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL or another book with more detailed database coverage. Even so, this is a strong hands-on title that PHP developers will want to keep close at hand. ----Tim Anderson

An O'Reilly Classic

This book is similar to every other O'Reilly book in that it is clear, concise and to the point. Never does it waffle on, and never does it go into too much detail and complexity that everyone except the best programmers understands it.
I personally found the explanation of objects and their classes to be better than the other explanations I have read for different languages, and certainly made picking up OOP in PHP a lot easier. Throughout is the obvious knowledge of the authors, something always reassuring in a title like this. The book fits well for beginners and seasoned programmers alike: the basics are explained well, and the technical reasons why things happen are included for good measure.

I was also surprised by the size of this book, as it significantly thinner than the other O'Reilly books (and other computer books for that matter), that I own. Computer books often appear large, daunting and dry. This book is an exception to that rule, and is perfectly good for someone wanting to learn PHP from the ground up to someone wanting to pick a chapter to swat up on, and use it as a reference book. All in all, a very good book.

Easy start in dynamic webpages

PHP is a great language to start creating dynamic websites with - it's easy to learn, but very powerful.

This book will start you out on the right tracks with PHP and help you build up your experience - even once you're experienced, you'll still turn to it for reference.

As usual, it's a solid O'Reilly title, it won't let you down. Being co-written by Rasmus himself (the creator of PHP) it benefits from more than a little extra experience and inside information.

Basically, if you want to create dynamic websites with a lot of power, PHP is the language you want, and this is the book.

Perfect for the beginner and very resourceful for others

I bought this book as a friend of mine from my computer course at university asked to me to help him with some coding he was doing for a company. I had only learnt Java in my life and I was pretty competent with that but I had never heard of php so this seemed like a very daunting task. The only reason I decided to try to learn it was that he kept saying that it was easy.

I got an extremely big shock when I realised he was absolutely right. Despite it being very similar to C and thus Java, it was like reading a published book of my Java lectures. It was extremely easy to read and I found myself coming to the conclusion that I was only going to be using this book in reference. However, I can see that this book explains the main grounds of learning any similar languages in very simple terms and therefore I recommend it to any beginner. It explains simple concepts such as data types all the way to reading from databases and more.

The only grudge I have against this book is its lack of example programs, which may throw beginners slightly. Understandably the author expects the reader to piece pieces of information together but I feel that it could at least provide a sample program summarising all the early chapters in addition to the database example. If you want to know what I mean, read Wu's book on Java (another very good book for beginners).

So, programmers new and old, get this book and its partner (the web database applications one) and go far you shall!!