PHP has gained a following among non-technical web designers who need to add interactive aspects to their sites. Offering a gentle learning curve, PHP is an accessible yet powerful language for creating dynamic web pages. As its popularity has grown, PHP’s basic feature set has become increasingly more sophisticated. Now PHP 5 boasts advanced features--such as new object-oriented capabilities and support for XML and Web Services--that will please even the most experienced web professionals while still remaining user-friendly enough for those with a lower tolerance for technical jargon.

If you’ve wanted to try your hand at PHP but haven’t known where to start, then Learning PHP 5 is the book you need. If you’ve wanted to try your hand at PHP but haven’t known where to start, then Learning PHP 5 is the book you need. With attention to both PHP 4 and the new PHP version 5, it provides everything from a explanation of how PHP works with your web server and web browser to the ins and outs of working with databases and HTML forms. Written by the co-author of the popular PHP Cookbook, this book is for intelligent (but not necessarily highly-technical) readers. Learning PHP 5 guides you through every aspect of the language you’ll need to master for professional web programming results. This book provides a hands-on learning experience complete with exercises to make sure the lessons stick.

Learning PHP 5 covers the following topics, and more:

• How PHP works with your web browser and web server
• PHP language basics, including data, variables, logic and looping
• Working with arrays and functions
• Making web forms
• Working with databases like MySQL
• Remembering users with sessions
• Parsing and generating XML
• Debugging

Written by David Sklar, coauthor of the PHP Cookbook and an instructor in PHP, this book offers the ideal classroom learning experience whether you’re in a classroom or on your own. From learning how to install PHP to designing database-backed web applications, Learning PHP 5 will guide you through every aspect of the language you’ll need to master to achieve professional web programming results.

Amazing Learning PHP 5
This books is amazing for the people who want know the new features in PHP 5

Great resource
Easy read. There are also so many examples, that I just want to test each one out. I highly recommend for anyone who doesn’t know anything about PHP.

Happy to meet the challenge...
I cheated. I looked in the back of the book for the answers so I could understand the programmer’s mind behind the solution. I’m getting so much out of this book! Now, I’ll think of a problem I need to solve, and because I took the time to learn some fundementals, I can piece together solutions in my head, which test positive when coded and loaded. A very satisfying experience all around. Reverse engineer is the way to learn!

May the parse be with you!

A note for Perl jocks
There’s nothing you can’t do in Perl so long as you can install any modules you want. If you can’t (say on a $12.99/month commercial host), give PHP a try. It has weaknesses and strengths vis-à-vis Perl, and you can use BOTH! They work well together, and with XHTML, CSS, and MySQL. Who says you have to choose one over the other?

After scouring the web for tutorials and sample code, I think this book is the quickest way to get up to speed. It is concise with meaty examples and warnings of pitfalls, and it is straightforward without any annoying cuteness or humor.

PHP code lives entirely within a web page. Some advantages:
1. You don’t have to make print statements for all the HTML on the page; the PHP code can be inserts in the HTML.
2. Flow control. A page can include its own associated programming logic for easier maintenance and an uncluttered webroot directory. A form page can recursively call itself, instead of a separate script, for processing, and can call other pages.
3. It’s embarrassingly *EASY* to learn with this book!

Some instructions just changed names (split is "explode," next is "continue") but others are new and super-handy for the web! Sessions and cookie-handling are built in to the language (chapter 8). Scope rules and data structures are different; just shut up and take it. You can’t shift, pop, or test for undef, but you get two-dimensional arrays.

If you go this route I guarantee you will have read this entire book, plus some of the online PHP manual, by the time your site is done. This book is not comprehensive but selects an excellent breadth of features.

One typo is unforgivable, and for that I unapologetically deduct a star: the very first database example in Chapter 1 shows $db->numrows() without the parens, which does not work. I spent two days trying to figure out what was wrong. Very confusing since the old way of doing it (before PHP’s PEAR extensions) was mysql_num_rows <--without any parens.

TIP: Do NOT assume that your host is on PHP 5! Though mine advertises 5, they put you on 4 unless you ask for 5. This one-line program will tell you which version you’re on:

A note for Perl jocks
If you can’t install any Perl modules you want (say on a $12.99/month commercial host), give PHP a try. It has weaknesses and strengths vis-à-vis Perl, but you can use both! They work well together, and with XHTML, CSS, and MySQL. Who says you have to choose one over the other?

After scouring the web for tutorials and sample code, I think this book is the quickest way to get up to speed. It is concise with excellent code samples, warnings of pitfalls, and techniques for thwarting adversaries (hackers). It is straightforward without annoying cuteness or humor.

PHP code lives entirely within a web page. Some advantages:
1. You don’t have to make print statements for all the HTML on the page; the PHP code can be inserts in the HTML.
2. Flow control. A page can include its own associated programming logic for easier maintenance and an uncluttered webroot directory. A form page can recursively call itself, instead of a separate script, for processing, and can call other pages.
3. It’s embarrassingly *EASY* to learn with this book!

Some instructions just changed names (split is "explode," next is "continue") but others are new and super-handy for the web! Sessions and cookie-handling are built in to the language (chapter 8). Scope rules and data structures are different; you can’t shift, pop, or test for undef, but you get two-dimensional arrays.

If you go this route I guarantee you will have read this entire book, plus some of the online PHP manual, by the time your site is done. This book is not comprehensive but selects an excellent breadth of features.

One typo is unforgivable, and for that I unapologetically deduct a star: the very first database example in Chapter 1 shows $db->numrows() without the parens, which does not work. I spent two days trying to figure out what was wrong. Very confusing since the old way of doing it (before PHP’s PEAR extensions) was mysql_num_rows <--without any parens.

TIP: Do NOT assume that your host is on PHP 5! Though mine advertises 5, they put you on 4 unless you ask for 5. This one-line program will tell you which version you’re on:

TIP #2: Blank screen got you down? You can see the syntax error by running it from a command line, like this: php5 mypage.php

A note for Perl jocks
If you can’t install all the Perl modules you want (say on a $12.99/month commercial host), give PHP a try. It has weaknesses and strengths vis-à-vis Perl, but you can use both! They work well together, and with XHTML, CSS, and MySQL. Who says you have to choose one over the other?

After scouring the web for tutorials and sample code, I think this book is the quickest way to get up to speed. It is concise with excellent code samples, warnings of pitfalls, and techniques for thwarting adversaries (hackers). It is straightforward without annoying cuteness or humor.

PHP code lives entirely within a web page. Some advantages:
1. You don’t have to make print statements for all the HTML on the page; the PHP code can be inserts in the HTML.
2. Flow control. A page can include its own associated programming logic for easier maintenance and an uncluttered webroot directory. A form page can recursively call itself, instead of a separate script, for processing, and can call other pages.
3. It’s embarrassingly *EASY* to learn with this book!

Some instructions just changed names (split is "explode," next is "continue") but others are new and super-handy for the web! Sessions and cookie-handling are built in to the language (chapter 8). Scope rules and data structures are different; you can’t shift, pop, or test for undef, but you get two-dimensional arrays.

If you go this route I guarantee you will have read this entire book, plus some of the online PHP manual, by the time your site is done. This book is not comprehensive but selects an excellent breadth of features.

One typo is unforgivable, and for that I unapologetically deduct a star: the very first database example in Chapter 1 shows $db->numrows() without the parentheses, which does not work. I spent two days trying to figure out what was wrong. Very confusing since the old way of doing it (before PHP’s PEAR extensions) was mysql_num_rows <--without parentheses.

TIP: Do NOT assume that your host is on PHP 5! Though mine advertises 5, they put you on 4 unless you ask for 5. This one-line program will tell you which version you’re on:

TIP #2: Blank screen got you down? You can see the syntax error by running it from a command line, like this: php5 mypage.php

A review for Perl jocks
Although there’s nothing you can’t do in Perl on your own server, if you develop on a hosting service you have to make-do with the Perl modules they give you; you can’t install any. PHP’s built-ins mimic the functionality of the Perl modules most useful for web development. I had to admit PHP has some handy features. After scouring the web for tutorials and sample code, I came back to this book and realized how great it is: it has concise discussion, meaty examples, and warnings of pitfalls, without the annoying humor and cuteness that ruins many books. I think it’s the quickest way to get up to speed on PHP.

PHP code lives entirely in a web page. The advantages are:
1. You don’t have to make print statements for all the HTML on the page; the PHP’s an adjunct to the HTML.
2. A page includes its own associated programming logic (flow control, etc.) for easy maintenance and an uncluttered webroot directory.
3. A page can recursively call itself, instead of a separate script, to process its form, further reducing clutter.
4. It’s embarrassingly *EASY* to learn with this book!
5. It has limitations compared to Perl, but you can use both! They work well together, and with XHTML and MySQL! Who says you have to choose?

You have to learn some new functions, but fewer than you think. Some just changed names (Perl’s split is called "explode"; next = "continue"). Others replace some of the clunkier Perl modules. There’s a chapter on cookies and sessions.

One typo is unforgivable, and for that I unapologetically deduct two stars: the very first database example in Chapter 1 shows $db->numrows() without the parens, which does not work. I spent two days trying to figure out what was wrong. Very confusing since the old way of doing it (before the PEAR extensions) was mysql_num_rows <--without any parens.

TIP: Do NOT assume that your host is on PHP 5! Mine puts you on 4 unless you ask for 5. This one-line program will tell you which version you’re on:

A note for Perl jocks
There’s nothing you can’t do in Perl so long as you can install any modules you want. If you can’t (say on a hosting service), consider giving PHP a try. It has weaknesses (and web development strengths) vis-à-vis Perl, but you can use both! They work well together, and with XHTML, CSS, and MySQL. Who says you have to choose?

After scouring the web for tutorials and sample code, I think this book is the quickest way to get up to speed. It is concise with meaty examples and warnings of pitfalls, and it is straightforward without any annoying cuteness or attempted humor.

PHP code lives entirely within a web page. Some advantages:
1. You don’t have to make print statements for all the HTML on the page; the PHP code can be an insert in the HTML.
2. Flow control. A page can include its own associated programming logic for easier maintenance and an uncluttered webroot directory. A form page can recursively call itself, instead of a separate script, for processing.
3. It’s embarrassingly *EASY* to learn with this book!

Some functions just changed names: split is called "explode"; next = "continue." There are also many new ones to learn, but they’re handy! There’s a chapter on cookies and sessions, which are built in to the language.

One typo is unforgivable, and for that I unapologetically deduct two stars: the very first database example in Chapter 1 shows $db->numrows() without the parens, which does not work. I spent two days trying to figure out what was wrong. Very confusing since the old way of doing it (before PHP’s PEAR extensions) was mysql_num_rows <--without any parens.

TIP: Do NOT assume that your host is on PHP 5! Mine puts you on 4 unless you ask for 5. This one-line program will tell you which version you’re on:

some good tricks
I somewhat wish the author would devote less time to explaining what a database is and more to the agony of finding and installing the various extensions e.g. php-pdf.dll and php_mcrypt.dll, since quite a few of the examples in the book don’t work without these. I got the database example to work using Oracle’s OCI methods. No luck with the author’s example.
Still, its a start.

some good tricks
If you’re in a Windows shop, save yourself a lot of pain: download EasyPHP (mentioned on p. 261). Then substitute a version 5.2 php for C:\EasyPHP\php (which is version 4.3) . HINT: EasyPHP uses the php.ini in the conf-files dir, not the one in the php.

Buggy Examples
Why do I have to give this even 1 star? The early examples in the book didn’t work, so I put it down and never went back to it.

Learning PHP 5 is a mis-nomer.
This mis-titled book is probably the worst book I’ve ever purchased from that most respected technical publisher, O’Reilly.

I say the book is mis-titled since it weasel-words the title of "Learning PHP 5" (and all the new OOP re-write) into a few hundred pages devoted to the standard language constructs available in previous versions, and all but omits the real changes incorporated in the new version.

In fact, of the 254 pages in the chaptered part of the book only two pages even mention object oriented programming in this context, and simply recommend other O’Reilly books as reference.

I’m disappointed that O’Reilly would have let this book reach distribution

stuck at chapter 7
I bought an O’Reilly book to teach myself perl & it was great. I’m writing a review about this one because I’m frustrated. The first six chapters go by like a breeze for folks familiar with other programming languages (I use perl, mel, c, html, studio). well, that’s not entirely true. I couldn’t get my apache server to execute any of my php code (I’m on a new mac mini). I followed all the instructions in appendix A to no avail. Finally, I just uploaded my php scripts to a webserver & my code worked there. but that’s super annoying because I have to upload my php file every time I want to test it (& sometimes my internet connection is slow). whatever. anyway: when I got to chapter 7 none of the examples worked anymore & it is extremely vague exactly how you’re supposed to run some commands. for example: if you want to set up a database, you run the following command only one time:

CREATE TABLE dishes (
dish_id INT,
dish_name VARCHAR(255),
price DECIMAL(4,2),
is_spicy INT
)

but where do you run it from? also, the book relies heavily on using extensions that weren’t installed in my version of php. additionally, I’m not sure if certain examples are just there to demonstrate what should work, or things that actually work. ie: this code is supposed to connect you to a database:

require ’DB.php’;
$db = DB::connect(’mysql://penguin:top^hat@db.example.com/restaurant’);

is that actually supposed to work, or is it just an example? if it doesn’t work for me (which it didn’t), then I have to figure out what’s wrong w/my system etc.

another frustrating this is the book recommends using several commands (like running system commands) that my webserver doesn’t allow for security reasons. this problem should at least be addressed in the book. hopefully, I’m not just frustrated with php itself because several of my coworkers swear by it. but I’ve had more luck tracking down answers to very basic questions online than finding them in this book.

It’s not good when a book for beginners has bugs in the code.
I’m sorry, but this book is just down right lousy. It was the very first book I ever picked up to teach me PHP. Back then, I had assumed that all books on technical matters would be as close to perfect as one could get. However, as I typed away at my initial pages, nothing was working right. There was constant errors. As a beginner, this is quite frustrating, because you just have no idea as to what you could be doing wrong. Well...as I looked online in the errata section for the book, there was so much information as to the corrections to the code, that I might as well have gone to the Errata section for free rather than waste my time and money. Now, with more experience, the bugs are so bluntly obvious as to what was wrong. Not like a typo, or a group of text missing. But I mean, obvious very "simplistic" code that was...just the wrong code. And this isn’t very professional to have code that obvious be printed. It shows that it wasn’t tested.

What’s more: PHP5 is a huge evolution to the previous incarnations. While there’s some basic coverage of things such as XML parsing, there’s nothing about classes, or anything that makes PHP5 different. So, for the traditional procedural style of coding, there’s far better books out there on the topic of PHP4, and there’s far more valuable resources to get you up to speed in php5 that give you actual projects.

I liked...
Well written and organized. One thing I should mention is that there is a lot of hand holding as the book is really made for beginners.

Good but examples are riddle with simple mistakes
I was hoping this book with explain the fine points in PHP 5 but NO! Starting on the 7th example (page 10), the author made two mistakes in his example: This is no such variable as $dbq and q->numrows is suppose to be q->numrows(). And there’s more. I expected more from an O’reily author but....

For a beginning book, this book assumes you understand PEAR, have it installed and working. This is your basic college textbook: lots of theories -- no application. It looks like some college professor wrote it.

This book is a good starting point for the beginning PHP programmers but it it’s not useful in trying to apply PHP to anything. Bottomline: I stopped after chapter one.

very useful, easy to learn book
I took my last programming language class 10 years ago, haven’t programmed for more than 5 years. After I read this book for 3 days, I can do many easy PHP programs. Well worth the price paid.

Great book if you are new to PHP.
Great book if you are a beginner. The book will teach you everything you should know to read avanced books.

After reading Learning PHP 5 I got everything that I wanted from this book. It presented the basics in a clear and concise way- so that you do not have to dig through the text to find what a particular thing means. Although it will not make you an advanced or expert PHP programmer, nor does it attempt to, you will learn how to write some basic functions and more importantly for me - read PHP code.

Begin here
This was my beginning in php programming and I ended up making dynamic websites running with MySQL plus SQLite. The book starts easy and progresses from there, nicely written.
It is easy to use, read and if you have a genuine interest in learning (not buying the book and think that qualifies to then know) it is a great book. I was a complete beginner in PHP when I started with this book and now I can do pretty nifty things thanks to it, so I will say it is well suited for beginners.

Learning is permanent
Self-training is a must these days, and this book has, at this stage of my life, greatly contributed to enlarge my knowledge into a programming language almost unknown to me until now.

Learning PHP 5 is not about PHP 5
Basic book on php. Not very good although well written. Cheats on some tasks (like SQL) by relying on PEAR etc. Nothing about object oriented php nor specifics on PHP 5.0 As such, the title is a rip off. Typical O’Reilly fluff.

Good intro, but lacking in important areas
There are several problems with this book that the author should fix for a future edition:

1. He structures the pages in the examples and exercises such that they mix decision code with user interface code. That these two are not separated is a serious flaw; doing server side validation is different for pages where the different types of code are separated, and it is best to keep them separated when different people are working on each type of code.

2. The part of the code (in code samples from chapter 6 onwards) that check for the presence of the $_POST[`_submit_check’] generates an error if you have apache set to show errors. The fix for this is to place the following code before the "if($_POST[`_submit_check’]"):

if (array_key_exists(’_submit_check’, $_POST)) {
// print "$_POST[_submit_check];
} else {
$_POST[’_submit_check’]=false;
}

(the commented-out portion was for troubleshooting)

3. In chapter 2, he goes about formatting output using printf(), \n, and placeholders to place leading whitespace in front of numbers to line them up in a column. However, HTML ignores excessive whitespace, unless such whitespace is enclosed in
< pre> tags, which if used leads to some other problems. The result is that formatting and extra line breaks to not appear in the browser when testing the code. \n should be replaced by < br/ >, and a < table > should be used (with the align attributes of the elements set) to format output.

4. He only touched on the "5" part of php 5, and for the most part this is restricted to the part of the book dealing with databases. The author would do well to go into creating classes.

5. It would be nice if the author could instruct the reader on how to store user-defined functions in a file that could be used in other programs via the "require" directive. This would be handy for the exercises in the book since some of the code validation and other scripts need to be reused.

The pros are that interaction with databases is done well, the lessons are clear and easy to understand. It is a good intro book, but barely warrants the "5" in the title. For better server side validation (i.e. with decision and presentation code separated) look elsewhere.

The best PHP book for begginers
This book is absolutly the best for learning PHP quickly, and learning useful thing’s in the process.
With this book I was able to write many high-end scripts within a month:
* A forum
* several blog’s
* Data managment \ Website managment
* Chat room
* Full blown text MMORPG

My text MMORPG is still in progress, but it will be compelted soon thanks to this book.
I highly recomend it for anyone looking to learn PHP fast and easily!

Way too simplistic
I got this book because I figured it would be a good introduction to PHP, but it was not. I have experience programming applications (in java and C), but not for the web and was curious about php.
It feels that after reading the entire book, I hardly know about php 5. If all you want to know is how to make basic forms or how to interact with a database in a basic way then this book may be for you, but if you want to know the ins and outs of php this book is horrible.

I definitely think this book is pretty much useless for experienced programmers, but I would also be inclined to believe that its not good for beginners either. Oh well, I’m off to shop for a new book on php!

Good place to start, but beware: no OOP coverage
I picked up this book shortly after PHP 5 became available, expecting that because it’s specifically about PHP 5 it would give some attention to PHP 5’s new features over PHP 4. Most specifically I wanted to read about PHP 5’s completely new Object Model, which is not a minor change. This book only mentions objects and classes in passing though, so it wasn’t helpful to me at all in that regard. The chapter on working with databases has been helpful to me. It focuses mainly on PEAR DB but includes some good information about PHP 5’s improved MySQL functions.

It’s still a helpful book for programming PHP in general, and I do check it from time to time to brush up on syntax or look at example code. It reads pretty well and the examples are solid. If you’re coming to PHP with prior experience in Java, Perl, or anything similar, you’ll probably find the pace pretty slow. If you want a well-rounded introduction to PHP you’ll do well with this book. If you’re looking for information on more advanced topics like object-oriented programming, look elsewhere.