What is this book about?

PHP, Apache, and MySQL are the three key open source technologies that form the basis for most active Web servers. This book takes you step-by-step through understanding each — using it and combining it with the other two on both Linux and Windows servers.

This book guides you through creating your own sites using the open source AMP model. You discover how to install PHP, Apache, and MySQL. Then you create PHP Web pages, including database management and security. Finally, you discover how to integrate your work with e-commerce and other technologies. By building different types of Web sites, you progress from setting up simple database tables to tapping the full potential of PHP, Apache, and MySQL.

When you’re finished, you will be able to create well-designed, dynamic Web sites using open source tools.

What does this book cover?

Here’s what you will learn from this book:

• How PHP server-side scripting language works for connecting HTML-based Web pages to a backend database
• Syntax, functions, and commands for PHP, Apache, and MySQL
• Methods and techniques for building user-friendly forms
• How to easily store, update, and access information using MySQL
• Ways to allow the user to edit a database
• E-commerce applications using these three technologies
• How to set up user logins, profiles, and personalizations
• Proper protocols for error handling

Who is this book for?

This book is for beginners who are new to PHP and who need to learn quickly how to create Web sites using open source tools. Some basic HTML knowledge is helpful but not essential.

PHP, Apache, and MySQL are the three key open source technologies that form the basis for most active Web servers. This book takes you step by step through understanding each using it and combining it with the other two on both Linux and Windows servers. This book will guide you through creating your own sites using the open source AMP model. You ll learn to install PHP, Apache, and MySQL. Then you ll create PHP Web pages, including database management and security. Finally, you ll discover how to integrate your work with e-commerce and other technologies. By building different types of Web sites, you will progress from setting up simple database tables to tapping the full potential of PHP, Apache, and MySQL. When you re finished, you will be able to create well-designed, dynamic Web sites using open source tools. What you will learn from this book How PHP server-side scripting language works for connecting HTML-based Web pages to a backend database Syntax, functions, and commands for PHP, Apache, and MySQL Methods and techniques for building user-friendly forms How to easily store, update, and access information using MySQL Ways to allow the user to edit a database E-commerce applications using these three technologies How to set up user logins, profiles, and personalizations Proper protocols for error handling Who this book is for This book is for beginners who are new to PHP and who need to learn quickly how to create Web sites using open source tools. Some basic HTML knowledge is helpful but not essential. Wrox Beginning guides are crafted to make learning programming languages and technologies easier than you think, providing a structured, tutorial format that will guide you through all the techniques involved.

What is this book about?

PHP, Apache, and MySQL are the three key open source technologies that form the basis for most active Web servers. This book takes you step-by-step through understanding each — using it and combining it with the other two on both Linux and Windows servers.

This book guides you through creating your own sites using the open source AMP model. You discover how to install PHP, Apache, and MySQL. Then you create PHP Web pages, including database management and security. Finally, you discover how to integrate your work with e-commerce and other technologies. By building different types of Web sites, you progress from setting up simple database tables to tapping the full potential of PHP, Apache, and MySQL.

When you’re finished, you will be able to create well-designed, dynamic Web sites using open source tools.

What does this book cover?

Here’s what you will learn from this book:

• How PHP server-side scripting language works for connecting HTML-based Web pages to a backend database
• Syntax, functions, and commands for PHP, Apache, and MySQL
• Methods and techniques for building user-friendly forms
• How to easily store, update, and access information using MySQL
• Ways to allow the user to edit a database
• E-commerce applications using these three technologies
• How to set up user logins, profiles, and personalizations
• Proper protocols for error handling

Who is this book for?

This book is for beginners who are new to PHP and who need to learn quickly how to create Web sites using open source tools. Some basic HTML knowledge is helpful but not essential.

* An ideal introduction to the entire process of setting up a Web site using PHP (a scripting language), MySQL (a database management system), and Apache (a Web server) * Programmers will be up and running in no time, whether they’re using Linux or Windows servers * Shows readers step by step how to create several Web sites that share common themes, enabling readers to use these examples in real-world projects * Invaluable reading for even the experienced programmer whose current site has outgrown the traditional static structure and who is looking for a way to upgrade to a more efficient, user-friendly site * The companion Web site features sample PHP scripts, as well as two fully functional working applications from the book

Great beginners book
I think the people that criticize this book don’t see the forest from the trees. Yes, there are typos, but this book goes into many of the things I was looking for in getting my ecommerce site going. I think a little more of an introduction/explanation of the basic concepts of html objects would be nice. That said, I have used many of the code examples in my site and am pleased with the results. I had an idea of the functionality I wanted on the site and every time I went to the book to find an example, it was there. Initially I was wondering about how I was going to install all of these tools (mysql, php, apache) and when I saw a reference to the xampp installer I was quite relieved. I have no hesitation in recommending this book to anyone interested in building a website with these tools.

It’s time is past!!
Well its been on my shelf for a couple years and how I’ve opened it. I am on page 165 and back to Amazon to search for a book to replace it.
The book is outdated. The forum for the book is not well visited. The support code for the book is failing images and some files. The code is written inconsistantly, different authors, and there is no mention of this or proper coding examples. Variables are created on the fly and creates some error messages with uptodate PHP. The explanations of certain things requires several readings sometimes to fill in blanks that a beginner should have explained. The use of CSS is not even mentioned so far and the html does not meet Xhtml standards. We must not forget the book was copyrighted in 2004.

I have purchased "Beginning PHP and MySQL 5" by Jason Gilmore and it seems to be a resonable book but leans more towards a reference text. The search continues...

Namaste,

Kevin Tough

This book was written by functional illiterates
The authors are great PHP programmers, I have no doubt, but terrible writers. I do not recommend this book. Like most bad technical writers, they make a big production about trivial concepts, then gloss over difficult concepts without explaining them in detail.

A Truly Excellent Book for the "Beginner"
This book is really quite good. It’s very interesting & definitely very readable. When I read it, I got straight down to business, so to speak. It gives very practical examples starting you off with making a movie review site which was very interesting! All in all, an excellent book to give you a working knowledge of PHP & MySQL.

That said, there are some shortcomings.

-Significant amount of typos in the code
-Some minor parts of the code requires redoing (which I found out through a forum dedicated for the book)
-For those of you with absolutely no experience in programming, you might find some concepts aren’t covered enough in detail

As I said before, overall, great book.

-ive 1 star for the shortcomings.

Richard

Solid coverage of beginning topics
I used this book as a tutorial on the subject with graduate students who had only basic programming experience and we all agreed that it was a great way to get started with database-backed PHP work.

Not Worth One Star
Worst book of all time, sorry guys and gals but whoever wrote and edited this book should buy a book themselves "Learn to Write and Edit by DUMMIES". To many typo’s and script errors which did not work!

Actually I would give the book a 5 star rating if they changed the name to Trouble Shooting Script Errors, Test Your Skills!

Great beginner’s book
This is a great book for beginners. It covers everything you will need to start out and it’s written very well - very easy to understand. The appendeces at the end are also wonderful, they cover php functions, mysql data types, etc. Also very helpful is the fact that you can access help forums that are specific to this book as well as downloadable files for every project in the book.
I have several other php books and this is by far the best: the easiest to understand, the most comprehensive.

Easy to Understand
I was forced into the world of PHP, MySQL and Apache by my boss, and I wasn’t sure which book to get. I chose this book and I thought it was great! I did see a few typos, but in a way it made me actually learn the stuff, instead of blindly typing away and hoping the programs worked. I understood what they were doing and it has made me catch my own mistakes too. For someone who didn’t really know what they were doing, I feel like an expert now! And it was nice to have useable applications when I was done- we are actively using several of these now (such as the emailing script and the user/login script- and we have plans to do more). My boss thinks I’m a genius.

I was reading these other reviews and while I can’t speak for other books, I had no problems with deprecated code (I never saw that "mysql_create_db" function once in the whole book and I’ve been through most of it already) or the missing sql script from chapter 6 (it was the same database used in chapters 3, 4, & 5.. duh!) so I don’t know what’s up with these other guys. But oh well to each his own.

At any rate, if you want a good primer, get this book.

Terrible for beginners!
Unless you’re looking for the challenge of picking out errors in code and fixing them yourself, do not buy this book. The syntax is awful and inconsistent. Minimal time is spent on explaining syntax and had me taking most of the code on faith. One part that should be considered a major blemish is where they tell you to use the script named "chapter6.mysql" and it is nowhere to be found. Can’t continue without it though!

After posting a question to the p2p board, the official response was, "We are looking into this issue and hope to post a reply soon." That was in early April, and it’s alredy almost mid-May. Still nothing. This shows the commitment the publishers and authors have to their books. I will never again buy a Wrox book.

If you still want to learn PHP and MySQL (minus Apache, which is discussed minimally in this book anyway), check out Larry Ullman’s Visual QuickPro Guide "PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites." He is very thorough and is VERY clear about syntax as well as logic, and gives good examples.

Very useful!
I have lots of computer books and I find this one to be extremely helpful. I’ve used information in this book to help with my home Internet business already! It is very user friendly and full of useful information. Most computer books are hard to use and I spend a lot of time flipping through pages and reading information I don’t need just to find what I’m looking for. This book wasn’t like that at all!!!

I really liked the chapter on sessions too!

Great for Beginners
I came to Amazon to offer my 2 cents on this book, and I was very surprised to read negative comments from others. I think this book is great for beginners, and I’m not sure why there are those who find it less than helpful. There were a few minor bugs in the code, but anybody with half a brain can figure it out. This book is one of the few that offer code where register_globals is "off" as had been my problem with other books. I found the real world examples useful and thorough (so far at least) and the reading is actually humorous which is also unlike some of the other books which sound like you are reading IRS tax documentation.

I not only learned a lot from this book, I enjoyed it as well.