• Shows Web developers how to use two popular open source technologies, the PHP scripting language and MySQL database, to build Web database applications
• This updated edition covers changes in PHP 5 and the latest version of MySQL, including programming techniques for the new PHP default setting, methods for handling MySQL security problems, and extended information about Apache Web Server and Mac OS X versions of PHP and MySQL
• Explains how to install Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X versions of PHP and MySQL
• Includes two complete sample applications: an online catalog and a members-only Web site
• Features a companion Web site with code examples from the book and links to the author’s successful site
• Kevin Beaver has more than fifteen years of experience in security and information technology, specializing in security assessments and incident response
• Features a companion Web site with links to various utilities discussed throughout the book and practical security checklists

• Shows Web developers how to use two popular open source technologies, the PHP scripting language and MySQL database, to build Web database applications
• This updated edition covers changes in PHP 5 and the latest version of MySQL, including programming techniques for the new PHP default setting, methods for handling MySQL security problems, and extended information about Apache Web Server and Mac OS X versions of PHP and MySQL
• Explains how to install Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X versions of PHP and MySQL
• Includes two complete sample applications: an online catalog and a members-only Web site
• Features a companion Web site with code examples from the book and links to the author’s successful site
• Kevin Beaver has more than fifteen years of experience in security and information technology, specializing in security assessments and incident response
• Features a companion Web site with links to various utilities discussed throughout the book and practical security checklists

The fun and easy way™ to create a Web database application!

Get the scoop on building online catalogs and members-only sites

Take your site to the next level – no programming or database experience required

With a MySQL database and a little PHP programming, you can add a whole new level of interactivity to your site – for free. But how do you get a fix on the world of Web database applications? Don’t worry! With this friendly reference (and the free software on the CD-ROM), you’ll be building a MySQL database and writing PHP programs in no time.

All this on the bonus CD-Rom

• PHP server-side scripting language
• MySQL relational database management system
• Apache Web server
• Sample applications and code from the book

System Requirements: A Pentium PC or faster; Windows 9x/2000/Me/XP, Windows NT 4 or later; Linux. At least 32 MB of total RAM; a CD-ROM drive.

See CD appendix for details and complete system requirements.

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You need to develop an interactive Web site in a hurry! Your boss just put you in charge of your company’s online catalog. And you don’t have a clue about how to develop a Web database application. Don’t panic, the Dynamic Duo,” PHP and MySQL, are here to save the day. MySQL is a fast, easy-to-use, open-source relational database management system that runs on most operating systems. PHP is a fast, easy-to-use, free scripting language designed for use on the Web that interacts with just about every type of database management system. Together, PHP and SQL have spelled relief for thousands of reluctant Web database developers just like you.

PHP and MySQL For Dummies fills you in on how to develop Web database applications using the Dynamic Duo — and no programming or database experience required! With this friendly reference as your guide, you’ll:

• Build and use a MySQL database
• Add PHP to HTML files
• Use all the features of the PHP language
• Use HTML forms to collect information from users
• Show information from a database in a Web page
• Store information in a database

In plain English, expert Janet Valade explains PHP and MySQL and shows you how to access and get started with them. And with the help of two complete sample applications, she walks you through the entire Web database application development process. Topics covered in detail include:

• Creating and changing MySQL databases and moving data in and out of them
• Writing PHP programs that enable your Web pages to insert, update, or remove information from a MySQL database
• Organizing PHP programs into a functioning application that interacts with MySQL databases
• Common traps to avoid when developing Web database applications and fixes for common problems

The bonus CD-ROM features:

• PHP
• MySQL
• Apache Web server
• Sample applications and code from the book

Ready to take your site to a bold new level of interactivity? PHP and MySQL For Dummies shows you how.

Damn fine piece of work
If you skim the verbiage, scout the chapter titles, read the section headings and review the code, you will very quickly understand php and the interaction with mysql.

This book will not teach you html. Go read that book.

This book will not teach you sql. Go read that book.

This book gives you a sequential and an object method of programming against a database within HTML.

Each example builds to the following example, until you have the final piece of programming demonstrating the concept.

The index works.

The only addition the author could make is strip the book down into a php and mysql 10 minutes per chapter type of book.

Terrible
I would recommend for beginners not to use this book. Even for me (a somewhat intermediate programmer), I had difficulty understanding what was being done and what it did. The example syntax is messy making it hard for readers to understand. There are better approaches for teaching PHP & Mysql.

Just right
Perfect for the newbie who has no probgramming experience but an understanding of the concept of programming and also of the structure of SQL databases.

Excellent guide to PHP & MySQL but with few typos.
I picked up this book from my school library, but it was not easy to borrow this book from there because it was checked out everytime I was trying to look through the library catalog, despite there were about 2 ~ 4 books showed up as "checked out". And I have to say that, when I finally found this book from the shelf and checked it out, the included CD was checked out by someone else.

Let me start with the format of this book. I am pretty sure that quite a lot of people here mentioned this fact in their reviews, but I have to say that this book has one of most interesting types of format I have read from the computer learning books. The author, who appears to have a plenty of experiences and background in the Web design and the programming, is able to express the material clearly without any kind of bragging or lossing herself in the middle of explanation. Her main application theme is "a pet store," which she was demonstrating extensively at the Chapters 11 and 12 as an actual application that is usable.

Before jumping into the "pet store application," it is necessary to mention her other teaching approaches in the previous chapters. At the first few chapters, she definitely put the emphasis on planning out and organizing the structure of your database and website before jumping into typing. In fact, she continues this trend further in the later chapters by suggesting to go back to the Chapter 3, a chapter which is entirely dedicated to the creating the database structure with a pen and a paper, and coming back again on Chapter 10, which I felt as a sort of short review for what a reader read so far. And I belive this format is one of best, if not the best, because this somehow closely resembles a school textbook that requires you to master and to think about the subject to proceed. She also does not skip the possible commands or queries by putting in a neat table that shows the script with their description next to it.

But most helpful and joyful part of this book is the application. Because the application here is rather long while needs the understanding, I strongly believe it is not a wise idea to jump into the application without understanding solidly on PHP or MySQL from the previous chapters. However, I have read the book almost throughly, and I right now have created an internet order system of my own with the shopping cart in addition to the catalog. Well, the "shopping cart" was not mentioned in the book, but this book was constructed in such a way that you can actually build your own applications or modify others. And because she used the "pet" as her main subject of the application, it will definitely not turn down the most of readers who just hate to be simply geeks and get bored reading such subject in the book. And because the book actually shows the screenshots of the application and the results after running the application, you cannot help trusting that the application is actually going to work and be an awesome one at that.

There are some problems with the book, however. One serious problem is that there are quite many typos in the book that can give you some headache. However, if you follow the book well or have some common experiences in debugging in the programming, this will actually become a mental exercise for you to understand better. At least that is what I think... The second problem is that the book does not extend beyond the advanced topic. Hence, if you are an advanced PHP or MySQL programmer and bought this book, it is very possible that you are going to be disappointed. Nevertheless, this book was meant for beginning programmer and it does the job so well at least for that purpose. And I think some experienced programmers will find this as an interesting book to scan over.

Coming back to my story... I did not have the CD when I checked out this book, but I think you can find the list of some applications in the website of the author. And while I had experienced some headache in trying out to figure out what was wrong with my application while there were typos, if you got a CD or if you visit her website, which I did not yet, I think you are going to be far better ahead with this book. Yes, I have to admit that I had some experiences with the programming, but I think this will definitely be easy to read for the completely new comers as well. This, in fact, is a much better book that other Dummy book that was published with 5 topics in one(I am not saying which one). And I have finished with this book during the Summer, which was enough time to be more experienced with so called PHP and MySql and to develop my own shopping page application. Hope this helped you.

Review of mySQL for Dummies
This very readable text does what it sets out to do - gives the reader a full appreciation of the power and initial usage of mySQL and PHP.

Solid way to start with PHP
Prior to reading this book, I had no experience with an algorithmic programming language. All I knew was HTML. After sitting down with this book for a day or two, I was already programming in PHP. This book covers EVERYTHING you need to know to get started, and after programming in PHP for three years now, I still look back to this book as a very helpful reference.

I am disappointed to see dismal reviews of this book when it has been so helpful to me. Most of such reviews are written by people who are simply using the book to the wrong ends. Before buying this book, you’ll want to make note of a few things:

-This book is perfect for people who only know HTML and want to expand their endeavors on the web. If you know another algorithmic programming language, chances are the bulk of this book will be filled with too much information you already know. For everyone else, the explanations are in depth enough to actually understand what the different aspects of PHP do.
-This book does not provide step-by-step tutorials. It gives you the information you need to create YOUR OWN programs. It provides examples of how a PHP program might be set up, but if you’re attempting to make use examples line by line, you will be disappointed with the end result (and you will be cheating yourself, because you’re just copying someone else’s code, not learning the language).
-As I said, I use this book as a basic reference, one that is far easier to understand than the complex explanations in the PHP manual found on the Internet. A good half of this book acts as a layman’s reference guide that’s organized to help you learn PHP and MySQL.
-This book just jumpstarts you for using PHP and MySQL, and yes, eventually you will outgrow it, but that’s not a shortcoming of the book. You’ll learn everything the book has to teach you and then you’ll want more. Once you’re ready to take that next step, and it won’t be long after you’ve exhausted this book, I suggest you pick up the PHP Cookbook from O’Reilly to further your skills.
-Even after you seem to have learned everything you can from this book, you’ll still want to keep it nearby. Every once in a while, I still reach for it to make sure I’m using the right syntax.

Without a doubt, this book will teach you what you’ve always wanted to learn about the most important language for the web right now.

Great Source
This is an excellent first step in learning PHP and MySql. Like any type of learning, you must be committed to obtain the best results. Your commitment and this book is an excellent beginning to knowing and understanding PHP and MySql.

I wish there was a 0 star
An awful book 0 stars - Do not waste your money on this one as I did.

I am new to PHP but find the book very basic. After first read I was able to point out that examples such as Login.php, login_form.inc have problems with the code (not 100% accurate). Also, the web pet store and the web member area have big design problems. More, missing coding for pages functions.inc and Member_page.php.

You can find much, much better books out there, shop around and Janet Valade should find another carrier. Janet, you suck when it comes to writing about PHP and MySQL.

Major holes, bad code and horrible final project
If I had not already taken an SQL class and done a bit of PHP on my own I would not have gotten very far in this book. The amount of basic coverage of database concepts is startlingly slim. The example Webiste that is created, a pet store, has a database schema that is horrible; it is everything a database design should avoid.

In the Pet shop project tables are made, but with no info on how to correctly populate them so you can run your php queries successfully. I checked the Website and they don’t offer any sample data to load ( be sure to be familiar with PHPmyAdmin in order to use this book).

I also found many errors in code which I had to debug(a great learning experience, but not what I expected).

The final project has such convoluted logic that I finally gave up. It appears that their idea of form validation is to show a brand new form and ask the user to fill out the info again. Very little id one to explain teh flow and logic ahead of time so you just end up typoing in what they say and it won’t work until everythign is made , then you go through and try to trace down where the logic is going wrong. I usually start a project simple and when it is working I make it more complex. THis one is one long headache.

The book also avoids mention of using PHP for Web site design with normal hyperlinks and navbars. All functionality is through forms.

I got this book for free and I feel cheated....

Fair
This is not the best "Dummies" book out there. Sometimes I wonder why a particular author is chosen to write a particular book.

I don’t like the organization of this book. I personally think it should start out with PHP and then move into the database stuff. Even when you start reading the database sections, they seem very weak and the information seems sparse.

However, I came from an ASP development background. Since the concepts of PHP and ASP are extremely similar (though PHP is much faster for one, and both languages are different syntactically), this book is probably oversimplified for readers like myself.

Still, this book is a decent introduction to PHP/MySQL, so it gets 3 stars.

If you already have development experience, this may not be the book for you. You can find all of its information out on the web. If you don’t have any development experience, you might want to start out learning HTML, then move to a PHP intro, then a database intro, and then to this book.

Either way, if you are going to buy this book, buy it used. There should be plenty availabe.

Also note that if you want an object-oriented approach, the author has written another edition of the book that makes use of newer versions of PHP. This version was not written around OOP.