PHP is a simple yet powerful open-source scripting language for creating dynamic web content. The millions of web sites powered by PHP are testament to its popularity and ease of use. PHP is used by both programmers, who appreciate its flexibility and speed, and web designers, who value its accessibility and convenience. Programming PHP is an authoritative guide to PHP 4 and is filled with the unique knowledge of the creator of PHP, Rasmus Lerdorf. This book explains PHP language syntax and programming techniques in a clear and concise manner, with numerous examples that illustrate both correct usage and common idioms. The book also includes style tips and practical programming advice that will help you become not just a PHP programmer, but a good PHP programmer. Programming PHP covers everything you need to know to create effective web applications with PHP. Contents include:

• Detailed information on the basics of the PHP language, including data types, variables, operators, and flow control statements
• Separate chapters on the fundamental topics of functions, strings, arrays, and objects
Coverage of common PHP web application techniques, such as form processing and validation, session tracking, and cookies
• Material on interacting with relational databases, such as MySQL and Oracle, using the database-independent PEAR DB library
• Chapters on generating dynamic images, creating PDF files, and parsing XML files with PHP
• Advanced topics, like creating secure script, error handling, performance tuning, and writing your own C language extensions to PHP
• A handy quick reference to all the core functions in PHP and all the standard extensions that ship with PHP

"....a well formed and written book, with the ’typical’ ORA feel to it?very clear and concise."

"Personally, I think the authors did a very credible job of creating a book that even a non-programmer can use to get started...."

"The book is a useful and practical introduction for those who want to get started with PHP programming."

Programming PHP, Second Edition is the authoritative guide to PHP 5 and is filled with the unique knowledge of the creator of PHP (Rasmus Lerdorf) and other PHP experts. When it comes to creating websites, the PHP scripting language is truly a red-hot property. In fact, PHP is currently used on more than 19 million websites, surpassing Microsoft’s ASP .NET technology in popularity. Programmers love its flexibility and speed; designers love its accessibility and convenience.

As the industry standard book on PHP, all of the essentials are covered in a clear and concise manner. Language syntax and programming techniques are coupled with numerous examples that illustrate both correct usage and common idioms. With style tips and practical programming advice, this book will help you become not just a PHP programmer, but a good PHP programmer. Programming PHP, Second Edition covers everything you need to know to create effective web applications with PHP. Contents include:

* Detailed information on the basics of the PHP language, including data types, variables, operators, and flow control statements

* Chapters outlining the basics of functions, strings, arrays, and objects

* Coverage of common PHP web application techniques, such as form processing and validation, session tracking, and cookies

* Material on interacting with relational databases, such as MySQL and Oracle, using the database-independent PEAR DB library and the new PDO Library

* Chapters that show you how to generate dynamic images, create PDF files, and parse XML files with PHP

* Advanced topics, such as creating secure scripts, error handling, performance tuning, and writing your own C language extensions to PHP

* A handy quick reference to all the core functions in PHP and all the standard extensions that ship with PHP

"Programming PHP, Second Edition" is the authoritative guide to PHP 5 and is filled with the unique knowledge of the creator of PHP (Rasmus Lerdorf) and other PHP experts. When it comes to creating websites, the PHP scripting language is truly a red-hot property. In fact, PHP is currently used on more than 19 million websites, surpassing Microsoft’s ASP .NET technology in popularity. Programmers love its flexibility and speed; designers love its accessibility and convenience. As the industry standard book on PHP, all of the essentials are covered in a clear and concise manner. Language syntax and programming techniques are coupled with numerous examples that illustrate both correct usage and common idioms. With style tips and practical programming advice, this book will help you become not just a PHP programmer, but a good PHP programmer. "Programming PHP, Second Edition" covers everything you need to know to create effective web applications with PHP.

Contents include the following: detailed information on the basics of the PHP language, including data types, variables, operators, and flow control statements; chapters outlining the basics of functions, strings, arrays, and objects; coverage of common PHP web application techniques, such as form processing and validation, session tracking, and cookies; material on interacting with relational databases, such as MySQL and Oracle, using the database-independent PEAR DB library and the new PDO Library; chapters that show you how to generate dynamic images, create PDF files, and parse XML files with PHP; advanced topics, such as creating secure scripts, error handling, performance tuning, and writing your own C language extensions to PHP; and, a handy quick reference to all the core functions in PHP and all the standard extensions that ship with PHP.

As the industry standard book on PHP, all of the essentials are covered in a clear and concise manner. Language syntax and programming techniques are coupled with numerous examples that illustrate both correct usage and common idioms. With style tips and practical programming advice, this book will help you become not just a PHP programmer, but a good PHP programmer. Programming PHP, Second Edition covers everything you need to know to create effective web applications with PHP.

Rasmus Lerdorf started the PHP Project back in 1995 and has been actively involved in PHP development ever since. Also involved in a number of other open source projects, Rasmus is a longtime Apache contributor and foundation member. He is the author of the first edition of the PHP Pocket Reference, and the co-author of the first edition of Programming PHP.

Kevin Tatroe has been a Macintosh and Unix programmer for ten years. He is an experienced PHP developer, knowledgeable in the changes coming with PHP 5. He is also co-author of the first edition of Programming PHP.

Peter MacIntyre lives and works in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. He has over 16 years of experience in the information technology industry, primarily in the area of software development. Peter’s technical skill set includes several client/server tools and relational database systems such as PHP, PowerBuilder, Visual Basic, Active Server Pages, and CA-Visual Objects. Peter is certified by ZEND Corporation on PHP 4.x and has contributed writing material for Using Visual Objects (Que Corp.), Using PowerBuilder 5 (Que Corp.), ASP.NET Bible (Wiley Pub.), and Web Warrior Survey on Web Development Languages (Course Technology). Peter is also currently a contributing editor and author to the on-line and in-print magazine called php|architect (www.phparch.com). He has also spoken several times at North American and International computer conferences including CA-World in New Orleans, USA; CA-TechniCon in Cologne, Germany; and CA-Expo in Melbourne, Australia.

Chapter 8 Databases
PHP has support for over 20 databases, including the most popular commercial and open source varieties. Relational database systems such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle are the backbone of most modern dynamic web sites. In these are stored shopping-cart information, purchase histories, product reviews, user information, credit-card numbers, and sometimes even web pages themselves.
This chapter covers how to access databases from PHP. We focus on the PEAR DB system, which lets you use the same functions to access any database, rather than on the myriad database-specific extensions. In this chapter, you ?ll learn how to fetch data from the database, how to store data in the database, and how to handle errors. We finish with a sample application that shows how to put various database techniques into action.
This book cannot go into all the details of creating web database applications with PHP.For a more in-depth look at the PHP/MySQL combination,see Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL by Hugh Williams and David Lane (O ?Reilly).
Using PHP to Access a Database
There are two ways to access databases from PHP. One is to use a database-specific extension; the other is to use the database-independent PEAR DB library. There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach.
If you use a database-specific extension,your code is intimately tied to the database you ?re using.The MySQL extension ?s function names, parameters, error handling, and so on are completely different from those of the other database extensions. If you want to move your database from MySQL to PostgreSQL,it will involve significant changes to your code.The PEAR DB,on the other hand,hides the database-specific functions from you;moving between database systems can be as simple as changing one line of your program.
The portability of an abstraction layer like PEAR ?s DB library comes at a price however. Features that are specific to a particular database (for example, finding the value of an automatically assigned unique row identifier)are unavailable. Code that uses the PEAR DB is also typically a little slower than code that uses a database-specific extension.
Keep in mind that an abstraction layer like PEAR DB does absolutely nothing when it comes to making sure your actual SQL queries are portable. If your application uses any sort of non generic SQL, you ?ll have to do significant work to convert your queries from one database to another.For large applications,you should consider writing a functional abstraction layer;that is,for each database your application needs to support, write a set of functions that perform various database actions, such as get_user_record(),insert_user_record(),and whatever else you need, then have a configuration option that sets the type of database to which your application is connected. This approach lets you use all the intricacies of each database you choose to support without the performance penalty and limitations of an abstraction layer. This would, however, take quite some time to build from scratch.
For simple applications, we prefer the PEAR DB to the database-specific extensions, not just for portability but also for ease of use. The speed and feature costs are rarely significant enough to force us into using the database-specific extensions. For the most part, the rest of this chapter gives sample code using the PEAR DB abstraction
objects.
For most databases, you ?ll need to recompile PHP with the appropriate database drivers built into it. This is necessary whether or not you use the PEAR DB library. The help information for the configure command in the PHP source distribution gives information on how to build PHP with support for various databases. For example:
--with-mysql [=DIR ] Include MySQL support..DIR is the MySQL base

directory.If unspecified,the bundled MySQL

library will be used.
--with-oci8 [=DIR ] Include Oracle--oci8 support.Default DIR is

ORACLE_HOME.
--with-ibm-db2 [=DIR ] Include IBM DB2 support..DIR is the DB2 base

install directory,defaults to

/home/db2inst1/sqllib
--with-pgsql [=DIR ] Include PostgreSQL support..DIR is the PostgreSQL

base install directory,defaults to

/usr/local/pgsql.
You can ?t build PHP with support for a database whose client libraries you don ?t have on your system. For example, if you don ?t have the Oracle client libraries, you can ?t build PHP with support for Oracle databases.
Use the phpinfo()function to check for database support in your installation of PHP. For instance, if you see a section in the configuration report for MySQL, you know you have MySQL support.
New in PHP Version 5 is the compact and small database connection called SQLite. As its name suggests, it is a small and light weight database tool. This database product comes with PHP 5 and has replaced the default database tool that once was MySQL. You can still use MySQL with PHP, but you have to do a little work to get it set up. SQLite is ready to go right "out of the box "when you install PHP, so if you are looking for a light weight and compact database tool, then be sure to read up on SQLite.

"Programming PHP," 2nd Edition, is the authoritative guide to PHP 5 and is filled with the unique knowledge of the creator of PHP (Rasmus Lerdorf) and other PHP experts. When it comes to creating websites, the PHP scripting language is truly a red-hot property. In fact, PHP is currently used on more than 19 million websites, surpassing Microsoft’s ASP .NET technology in popularity. Programmers love its flexibility and speed; designers love its accessibility and convenience.

As the industry standard book on PHP, all of the essentials are covered in a clear and concise manner. Language syntax and programming techniques are coupled with numerous examples that illustrate both correct usage and common idioms. With style tips and practical programming advice, this book will help you become not just a PHP programmer, but a "good" PHP programmer. "Programming PHP, Second Edition" covers everything you need to know to create effective web applications with PHP. Contents include: Detailed information on the basics of the PHP language, including data types, variables, operators, and flow control statements Chapters outlining the basics of functions, strings, arrays, and objects Coverage of common PHP web application techniques, such as form processing and validation, session tracking, and cookies Material on interacting with relational databases, such as MySQL and Oracle, using the database-independent PEAR DB library and the new PDO Library Chapters that show you how to generate dynamic images, create PDF files, and parse XML files with PHP Advanced topics, such as creating secure scripts, error handling, performance tuning, and writing your own C language extensions to PHP A handy quickreference to all the core functions in PHP and all the standard extensions that ship with PHP

Praise for the first edition:

"If you are just getting into the dynamic Web development world or you are considering migrating from another dynamic web product to PHP, "Programming PHP" is the book of choice to get you up, running, and productive in a short time."

--Peter MacIntrye, eWeek

"I think this is a great book for programmers who want to start developing dynamic websites with PHP. It gives a detailed overview of PHP, lots of valuable tips, and a good sense of PHP’s strengths."

--David Dooling, Slashdot.org

Programming PHP, 2nd Edition, is the authoritative guide to PHP 5 and is filled with the unique knowledge of the creator of PHP (Rasmus Lerdorf) and other PHP experts. When it comes to creating websites, the PHP scripting language is truly a red-hot property. In fact, PHP is currently used on more than 19 million websites, surpassing Microsoft’s ASP .NET technology in popularity. Programmers love its flexibility and speed; designers love its accessibility and convenience.

As the industry standard book on PHP, all of the essentials are covered in a clear and concise manner. Language syntax and programming techniques are coupled with numerous examples that illustrate both correct usage and common idioms. With style tips and practical programming advice, this book will help you become not just a PHP programmer, but a good PHP programmer. Programming PHP, Second Edition covers everything you need to know to create effective web applications with PHP. Contents include:

• Detailed information on the basics of the PHP language, including data types, variables, operators, and flow control statements
• Chapters outlining the basics of functions, strings, arrays, and objects
• Coverage of common PHP web application techniques, such as form processing and validation, session tracking, and cookies
• Material on interacting with relational databases, such as MySQL and Oracle, using the database-independent PEAR DB library and the new PDO Library
• Chapters that show you how to generate dynamic images, create PDF files, and parse XML files with PHP
• Advanced topics, such as creating secure scripts, error handling, performance tuning, and writing your own C language extensions to PHP
• A handy quick reference to all the core functions in PHP and all the standard extensions that ship with PHP

Praise for the first edition:

"If you are just getting into the dynamic Web development world or you are considering migrating from another dynamic web product to PHP, Programming PHP is the book of choice to get you up, running, and productive in a short time."

--Peter MacIntrye, eWeek

"I think this is a great book for programmers who want to start developing dynamic websites with PHP. It gives a detailed overview of PHP, lots of valuable tips, and a good sense of PHP’s strengths."

--David Dooling, Slashdot.org

Programming PHP, Second Edition is the authoritative guide to PHP 5 and is filled with the unique knowledge of the creator of PHP (Rasmus Lerdorf) and other PHP experts. When it comes to creating websites, the PHP scripting language is truly a red-hot property. In fact, PHP is currently used on more than 19 million websites, surpassing Microsoft’s ASP .NET technology in popularity. Programmers love its flexibility and speed; designers love its accessibility and convenience.

As the industry standard book on PHP, all of the essentials are covered in a clear and concise manner. Language syntax and programming techniques are coupled with numerous examples that illustrate both correct usage and common idioms. With style tips and practical programming advice, this book will help you become not just a PHP programmer, but a good PHP programmer. Programming PHP, Second Edition covers everything you need to know to create effective web applications with PHP. Contents include:

• Detailed information on the basics of the PHP language, including data types, variables, operators, and flow control statements
• Chapters outlining the basics of functions, strings, arrays, and objects
• Coverage of common PHP web application techniques, such as form processing and validation, session tracking, and cookies
• Material on interacting with relational databases, such as MySQL and Oracle, using the database-independent PEAR DB library and the new PDO Library
• Chapters that show you how to generate dynamic images, create PDF files, and parse XML files with PHP
• Advanced topics, such as creating secure scripts, error handling, performance tuning, and writing your own C language extensions to PHP
• A handy quick reference to all the core functions in PHP and all the standard extensions that ship with PHP

Praise for the first edition:

"If you are just getting into the dynamic Web development world or you are considering migrating from another dynamic web product to PHP, Programming PHP is the book of choice to get you up, running, and productive in a short time."

--Peter MacIntrye, eWeek

"I think this is a great book for programmers who want to start developing dynamic websites with PHP. It gives a detailed overview of PHP, lots of valuable tips, and a good sense of PHP’s strengths."

--David Dooling, Slashdot.org

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

Programming PHP, Second Edition is the authoritative guide to PHP 5 and is filled with the unique knowledge of the creator of PHP (Rasmus Lerdorf) and other PHP experts. When it comes to creating web sites, the PHP scripting language is truly a red-hot property. In fact, PHP is currently used on more than 19 million web sites, surpassing Microsoft’s ASP .NET technology in popularity. Programmers love its flexibility and speed; designers love its accessibility and convenience.

As the industry standard book on PHP, all of the essentials are covered in a clear and concise manner. Language syntax and programming techniques are coupled with numerous examples that illustrate both correct usage and common idioms. With style tips and practical programming advice, this book will help you become not just a PHP programmer, but also a good PHP programmer. Programming PHP, Second Edition covers everything you need to know to create effective web applications with PHP. Contents include:

• --Detailed information on the basics of the PHP language, including data types, variables, operators, and flow control statements
• --Chapters outlining the basics of functions, strings, arrays, and objects
• --Coverage of common PHP web application techniques, such as form processing and validation, session tracking, and cookies
• --Material on interacting with relational databases, such as MySQL and Oracle, using the database-independent PEAR DB library and the new PDO Library
• --Chapters that show you how to generate dynamic images, create PDF files, and parse XML files with PHP
• --Advanced topics, such as creating secure scripts, error handling, performance tuning, and writing your own C language extensions to PHP
• --A handy quick reference to all the core functions in PHP and all the standard extensions that ship with PHP

Praise for the first edition:

"If you are just getting into the dynamic Web development world or you are considering migrating from another dynamic web product to PHP, Programming PHP is the book of choice to get you up, running and productive in a short time."

--Peter MacIntrye, eWeek

"I think this is a great book for programmers who want to start developing dynamic web sites with PHP. It gives a detailed overview of PHP, lots of valuable tips, and a good sense of PHP’s strengths."

--David Dooling, Slashdot.org

The arrival of PHP 5 is a boon to the multitude of new and experienced web programmers who depend on this unique scripting language. PHP has long been a favorite among open source web developers for processing forms and accessing databases. And because of shared hosting providers such as EarthLink and Hostway, PHP has become an ideal language for newcomers who need a simple way to build database-backed web sites. In the new edition of Programming PHP, co-author Rasmus Lerdorf offers his unique knowledge and perspective as PHP s creator. PHP 5 has cleaned up the awkwardness of previous versions with new objects, better XML extensions, and new database extensions. Lerdorf and co-author Kevin Tatroe explain changes in PHP language syntax and programming techniques in a clear and concise manner, with numerous examples that illustrate both correct usage and common idioms. Their book also includes style tips and practical programming advice that will help readers not just become adequate PHP programmers, but good PHP programmers. For anyone interested in PHP 5, this is the guide.

PHP is far more than a cult language or open-source icon. It’s a remarkably capable language that’s well integrated with lots of technologies--notably mSQL and MySQL database servers--and quite easy to learn. Programming PHP helps you up the PHP learning curve, very nearly guaranteeing that you’ll find in its pages an example that illustrates every fundamental aspect of the language and its most important extension modules. Plus, there’s some cool advanced stuff, like recipes for manipulating images, working with Extensible Markup Language (XML) content, and generating Adobe Acrobat (PDF) files. Rasmus Lerdorf invented PHP and quarterbacks its ongoing evolution, so there’s little question of the content’s authority.

The authors use a Talmudic style to explore PHP’s capabilities and explain them to their readers, meaning that they like to present code and commentary in close formation, with each enhancing the other. Typically, they’ll present a capability generically and show the relevant code. Then they’ll dig into variations on the theme, calling attention to required code alterations as they go. This is a book about PHP itself, so practically no attention is paid to PHP Builder or other development tools. Regardless, this book will help you solve programming challenges with PHP, and enable you to write efficient, attractive code. --David Wall

Topics covered: The PHP programming language, for people who are coming to PHP with a bit of programming experience in other languages or who want to expand their existing PHP knowledge beyond the basics. Sections deal with the core language, as well as HTTP session management, database connectivity (to MySQL and Oracle, as well as with PHP Extension and Application Repository--PEAR), graphics file manipulation, XML parsing, and PDF creation. There are instructions for building a PHP extension library in C, as well as a function reference and guide to existing extensions.

PHP is a simple yet powerful open-source scripting language for creating dynamic web content. The millions of web sites powered by PHP are testament to its popularity and ease of use. PHP is used by both programmers, who appreciate its flexibility and speed, and web designers, who value its accessibility and convenience. Programming PHP is an authoritative guide to PHP 4, the latest version of the language, and is filled with the unique knowledge of the creator of PHP, Rasmus Lerdorf. This book explains PHP language syntax and programming techniques in a clear and concise manner, with numerous examples that illustrate both correct usage and common idioms. The book also includes style tips and practical programming advice that will help you become not just a PHP programmer, but a good PHP programmer. Programming PHP covers everything you need to know to create effective web applications with PHP. Contents include:

• Detailed information on the basics of the PHP language, including data types, variables, operators, and flow control statements
• Separate chapters on the fundamental topics of functions, strings, arrays, and objects
• Coverage of common PHP web application techniques, such as form processing and validation, session tracking, and cookies
• Material on interacting with relational databases, such as MySQL and Oracle, using the database-independent PEAR DB library
• Chapters on generating dynamic images, creating PDF files, and parsing XML files with PHP
• Advanced topics, like creating secure script, error handling, performance tuning, and writing your own C language extensions to PHP
• A handy quick reference to all the core functions in PHP and all the standard extensions that ship with PHP

Programming PHP Book

Said the book was in great condition, and it is! I’m ecstatic to have been able to purchase this book, at this price!

Kind of a Rip-Off
Don’t get me wrong, the book is okay. But I feel O’Reilly simply slung out a new version of the book for PHP 5, without really updating the content to reflect PHP 5’s enhancements. Especially the chapter covering OOP development with PHP 5. The content in that chapter is pure PHP 4. Not cool.

The treatment of objects lets this book down.
One of the primary reasons I got this book was to get a decent understanding of the use of objects. It fails to deliver on this front. The book assumes you alread know the ins and outs of objects, and fails to adequately explain their role in the language. For instance, it tells you how to create a static method, but doesn’t say why you might want to do so, or indeed, how a static method differs from a non-static method! I can make an educated guess at this, but educated guesses are not the way to learn something properly!

Having said that, prior to geting to the object chapter, the rest of the book had been much better. So if you already know your objects or don’t intend using that aspect of the language, then you can add at least 1 star to this review.

Descent PHP book. Not for Beginning PHP Developers
I bought this book after learning some Javascript and ColdFusion, thiking it would have some of the same concepts as most other scripting languages. Well PHP has some other features like the direction arrows, etc. This book didnt explain all the features of PHP very well to which I couldnt really understand what was going on, and I can understand most Javascript applications. I had to buy another bookto explain all of the basics better, and then I went back to this book and it was a great book after that! But if you are just starting PHP or scripting, I reccommend getting another book before buying this book.

Good, but not good enough.
O’Reily books have the same pattern. They take content that should have been one book for maybe $100, and divide it out into 3 or more books adding up to a heftier profit. This book a nice quick reference, but doesn’t cover the language in it’s entirety (or close enough to from my experience with other books) or provide any actual examples, rather brief one line syntax examples. I’ve programed C++, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, and SQL while attending a state university for a degree in computer science. While examples can be redundant because concepts of programming are understood, a decent example is truly the best way to observe case implications of syntax. For example, when the book talks about constants and the define("name",value) function, it fails to mention when used in a string and output, the constant is not interpolated (the user sees COUNT, instead of say 3). In my experience I’ve run into a dozen of these situations I wish the book would have at least mentioned. This is important to know, and more important to know how to work around and do what you want. It’s these details that make a solid programming manual, which this book claims to be. It is truly and introduction and quick reference. If you are not already an experienced PHP programmer, and you are going to deal with PHP at least somewhat in depth, you are better off looking elsewhere.

Excellent PHP Primer and Quick Reference
I read through this in a couple evenings. It highlighted some PHP functions which I should be using to streamline my code. It also overviews available PHP extensions such as database interfaces and PDF and graphics libraries. Nice to have a summary all in one place and right at hand.

nice if you’ree a programer
I really liked this book. I’ts easy to understand, and it covers the basics. Just as a warning, this book is focused in people that already have som basic knowledrge of programing and HML.

Excellent book by Rasmus Ledorf
I can certainly recommend this one for the upcoming PHP developer. The insight contained within was valuable.

The book is ’OK’, but not great
I used this book at work, and wasn’t impressed.

Now, maybe it’s the language itself that lacks consistency and isn’t all that interesting, I don’t know.
I wasn’t as much exceited reading the book as I was when I read, for example, K&R (C), Paul Graham and Peter Seibel (Lisp), Meyers (C++). The book will help you get things done, no doubt, but there doesn’t seem to be anything special about it.

The book is ’OK’, but not great
I used this book at work, and wasn’t impressed.



Now, maybe it’s the language itself that lacks consistency and isn’t all that interesting, I don’t know.

I wasn’t as much exceited reading the book as I was when I read, for example, K&R (C), Paul Graham and Peter Seibel (Lisp), Meyers (C++). The book will help you get things done, no doubt, but there doesn’t seem to be anything special about it.

Really a great PHP book
And I am not saying this lightly. I am writing about 2nd edition. This is a great PHP book, even for a beginner to PHP. I have been programming for years now, and read a bunch of programming books, and this is one of the best books I read so far. It is easy to follow, easy to understand, and it covers everything you need to become a greap PHP programmer.

Outstanding tutorial on PHP along with all of its possibilities
Most of the books I’ve looked at on PHP have tied it in a three-legged race with mySQL. I was looking for something that taught the core language itself and its place in applications besides those in which it is teamed with mySQL. This appears to be that book. The core PHP language features powerful string and array handling capabilites, as well as greatly improved support for object-oriented programming. Along with standard and optional extension modules, a PHP application can not only interact with a database such as MySQL or Oracle, it can also draw graphs, create PDF files, and parse XML files. You can write your own PHP extension modules in C to provide a PHP interface to the functions in an existing code library. You can even run PHP on Windows, which lets you control other Windows applications such as Word and Excel with COM or interact with databases using ODBC. This book is a guide to all of these capabiliies of the PHP language, as well as a tutorial on the core language itself. This book assumes you have a working knowledge of HTML and that you know how to program - preferably in either C, C++, or Perl.

The first six chapters teach the core language itself. The six chapters include a dedicated introduction and a chapter on language basics which acts as a concise guide to PHP program elements such as identifiers, data types, operators, and flow-control statements. The next four chapters after that concern functions, strings, arrays, and objects respectively. The following is an outline of the remaining chapters of the book:

Chapter 7, "Web Techniques" - PHP was designed as a web-scripting language and, although it is possible to use it in purely command-line and GUI scripts, the Web accounts for the vast majority of PHP uses. A dynamic web site may have forms, sessions, and sometimes redirection, and this chapter explains how to implement those things in PHP. You’ll learn how PHP provides access to form parameters and uploaded files, how to send cookies and redirect the browser, and how to use PHP sessions.

Chapter 8, "Databases" - PHP has support for over 20 databases, including the most popular commercial and open source varieties. This chapter covers how to access databases from PHP. The focus is on the PEAR DB system, which lets you use the same functions to access any database, rather than on the myriad database-specific extensions. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to fetch data from the database, how to store data in the database, and how to handle errors. The chapter finishes with a sample application that shows how to put various database techniques into action.

Chapter 9, Graphics - Many web images are dynamically created, such as graphs of stock performance. PHP supports the creation of such graphics with the GD and Imlib2 extensions. This chapter demonstrates how to generate images dynamically with PHP, using the GD extension.

Chapter 10, PDF - PHP has several libraries for generating PDF documents. This chapter shows how to use the popular fpdf library. The FPDF library is a set of PHP code you include in your scripts with the required function, so it doesn’t require any server-side configuration or support, meaning you can use it even without support from your host.

Chapter 11, XML - This chapter shows how to use the XML parser bundled with PHP, as well as how to use the optional XSLT extension to transform XML. Generating XML is also briefly covered here.

Chapter 12, Security - PHP’s convenience is a double-edged sword. The very features that let you quickly write programs in PHP can open doors for those who would break into your systems. It’s important to understand that PHP itself is neither secure nor insecure. The security of your web applications is entirely determined by the code you write. This chapter gives tips on making that code secure.

Chapter 13, Application Techniques - This chapter demonstrates some techniques you may find useful in your PHP applications, such as code libraries, templating systems, efficient output handling, error handling, and performance tuning.

Chapter 14, Extending PHP - This chapter demonstrates writing C language extensions to PHP. Although most functionality can be written in the PHP language, sometimes you need the extra speed and control you get from the C API. C is the mechanism for creating the thin middle layer between PHP and any third-party C library. For example, to be able to talk to the MySQL database server, PHP needs to implement the MySQL socket protocol. It would be a lot of work to figure out this protocol and talk to MySQL directly using "fsockopen" and "fputs" from a PHP script. Instead, the same goal can be accomplished with a thin layer of functions written in C that translate MySQL’s C API, implemented in the libmysqlclient library included in MySQL, into PHP language-level function calls. This thin layer of functions is known as a PHP extension.

Chapter 15, PHP on Windows - The most common reason to use PHP on Windows is to develop web applications on your Windows desktop. What can be confusing at first is the number of various configurations and choices available. There are many variants of the Windows operating system, and many web servers are available for those operating systems. PHP itself can run as either a DLL or a script. This chapter explains how to install, configure, and make the best use of PHP on Windows systems. One approach is taken and followed to its conclusion, although there are a number of different ways to arrive at the same destination. Also explained is how to take advantage of the features unique to the Windows platform, such as connecting to databases with ODBC and controlling Microsoft Office applications through COM.

As you can see this book really provides two functions. It is a very thorough tutorial and reference on the PHP programming language, and it is also a tutorial and showcase of all of the different uses PHP can have. Well commented code and instructions are provided throughout. I highly recommend it to anyone who needs to learn the PHP programming language as well as those that know the basics and want to put the language to work. Just make sure you know HTML and programming - preferably both C and PERL - first.

Too many mistakes
I found this book a good introduction to PHP. But, it has a lot of mistakes. I think these have happened when the book was updated to cover PHP 5.

For example, when it describes constructors it says the constructor is a function named __construct(). But then it immediately gives an example where the constructor for class Person is a function called Person(). The former is PHP 5, the latter is PHP 4. Perhaps the update was a rush job.

If you can’t already program in C or C++ then this book may not be for you. If you can, then it’s OK.

Solid Look At PHP Programming
’Programming PHP’ by Kevin Tatroe is a solid look at this popular open source solution for generating dynamic web pages. Competing against the money solutions ASP and JSP, PHP will give you the same kind of functionality, but at a much lower price! Packed with over 500 pages of PHP goodness, this book will make you a better PHP programmer and teach you how to go all the way from defining the most basic of variables to performing database tasks and all sorts of other important tasks and tricks of the trade. I highly recommend this well-written and well ordered book, perfect for anyone that wants to learn and excel at PHP programming!!

Chapter Overview

01. Introduction
02. PHP Basics
03. Functions
04. Strings
05. Arrays
06. Objects
07. Web Techniques
08. Databases
09. Graphics
10. PDF
11. XML
12. Security
13. Application Techniques
14. Extending PHP
15. PHP on Windows

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Not the best, but decent
It’s not the best computer language book I have ever read, by a long shot, but it did give me most of what I needed. I found a number of errors, including places where the example code differs from the text description. This is mostly the editor’s fault. Also, there were a number of important details that were left out. This brings me to my main concern: it is not clear who this book was written for. A novice would be overwhelmed, I think, while a more experienced programmer like me may be frustrated with some critical omissions. On the whole, though, it did get the job done.

Very Good
Written in the standard O’Reilly style, this book gives you a comprehensive coverage of PHP without being overly verbose or too dryly technical. Now in its 2nd edition this book covers the most recent version of PHP, version 5.

While I wouldn’t want to learn PHP as a first programming language from this book, anybody with a basic knowledge of HTML and an OOP based language (Java, C++ or even JavaScript) will quickly be able to code PHP.

While the book isn’t perfect: the aforementioned lack of concrete examples (the cynic in me might think that O’Reilly were saving these for the PHP Cookbook which is due out soon) and the chapter on objects being only 20 pages long, it’s still all you would need as both a reference and a learning resource. A strong buy.

Very Good
Written in the standard O’Reilly style, this book gives you a comprehensive coverage of PHP without being overly verbose or too dryly technical. Now in its 2nd edition this book covers the most recent version of PHP, version 5.

While I wouldn’t want to learn PHP as a first programming language from this book, anybody with a basic knowledge of HTML and an OOP based language (Java, C++ or even JavaScript) will quickly be able to code PHP.

While the book isn’t perfect: the aforementioned lack of concrete examples (the cynic in me might think that O’Reilly were saving these for the PHP Cookbook which is due out soon) and the chapter on objects being only 20 pages long, it’s still all you would need as both a reference and a learning resource. A strong buy.

Programming PHP, 2nd Edition (PHP 5)
I’m assuming via the dates of the other reviews, that most of them are referring to Version 1.

I have Version 2 with me and after reading a few chapters, have come to the conclusion that this is a worthwhile investment.

The author(s) appear to have read my mind as I thought about counter examples ("what about in this case?"), for in the following paragraph such concerns are addressed.

This is an easy read and easily absorbed; yet not too verbose (yawn).

I’m giving it 4/5 stars, simply because there’s no downloadable example code. But that is a minor issue; for me.

This is a good book and I shall keep it.

Better - What you would expect from a 2nd edition
Spent an hour examining this 2nd edition. I’ve also spent some time reading the reviews of the 1st edition and you are right on the money, Nathan Torkington. Many of the reviews show that the reviwer did not take much time or care going thru the book. When you’ve got the kind of talent and writing experience shared by the two authors, you have got to be one doozy of a PHP person to find the kind of faults some reviewers report. O’Reiily does a great job of maintaining an ERRATA page for each of their books. You never made a typo, guys ? In general this is a nice cleanup of the book. Very good for starters & intermediates.
And thank you to David Wall, who says it all: "The authors use a Talmudic (JBC adds:For readers not familiar with the TALMUD, check out Wikipedia)style to explore PHP’s capabilities and explain them to their readers, meaning that they like to present code and commentary in close formation, with each enhancing the other. Typically, they’ll present a capability generically and show the relevant code. Then they’ll dig into variations on the theme, calling attention to required code alterations as they go. This is a book about PHP itself, so practically no attention is paid to PHP Builder or other development tools. Regardless, this book will help you solve programming challenges with PHP, and enable you to write efficient, attractive code."

nice book
Like many people I know, I have to use multiple programming languages, and php happens to be one of them. Programming PHP is a great book for PHP speakers and the excellent php function reference in appendix A is really adequate value for the book.

Take heart, you can do without the book, if you don’t already own a copy, but owning a copy is also a great way to support the community, so go get on.

Lack of Examples
This book lacks examples. It describes a function in English words but rarely gives an example of how to invoke it. If you’re trying to do File I/O this book is NOT for you.

Short Review of "Programming PHP"
PHP is a programming language that can be embedded in web pages. It makes it significantly easier to develop and maintain web pages.

This is a clear, well-organized reference manual for PHP. I’ve found it very useful.

It is not a tutorial for PHP. It does not cover PHP 5.

If you wish, checkout my somewhat longer review on the Oakland Perl Mongers site.

George Woolley of Camelot.pm and Oakland.pm

Learning to Program PHP
This book is perfect to begin to learn PHP, being only necessary to have some previous knowledge of programming, because the explanations are clear, concrete and contains many examples. This book is not very deep in the aspects that treat but it is very complete in general.

The book consists of four parts differentiated clearly.

In the first part, from chapter 2 to chapter 6, it approaches all the characteristic of the language with clear explanations and clear examples, from the basic elements of the language to the OOP.

In the second part, from chapter 7 to chapter 13, it applies the characteristics of the language shown previously to solve situations common, with many complete examples and clear and short explanations, with the WEB, databases, graphics, PDF, XML, security and application techniques.

In the third part, appendix A, there is an extensive list of the functions of the PHP, this part is poorest because it consists of a simple reference of functions without examples nor too many explanations, but also necessary being given the great amount of functions that has the PHP and that the book is showing in the chapters as they are necessary.

In the last part distributed in chapters 1, 15 and 15, and appendix B, show how to install, to execute and to expand an installation of PHP in Linux and in Windows.

Student programmer viewpoint
I work in a student design center and use this book to create applications of various complexity, from simple webpages, to a small online marketplace, to a complex, dynamic database. Everyone that found this book "out of focus" and the examples irrelevant is simply a coder below the level of the book. If you know your way around programming, this book is very helpful. If you don’t, it’ll confuse you. I have little "formal" training in programming, but I’ve been messing around with various languages like Pascal and C++ since I was 10, so I can read books like this easily. Someone who just wants to make a "rad" webpage and has no coding background (CSS expertise doesn’t count, sorry boys and girls) will run into a brick wall because of the level of understanding this book requires.

I recently purchased this book and love it
The so called "typos and errors" are false accusations. They are most likly attemping to script php5 code examples in a PHP4 setting and not realizing it. Yes, some of the examples do not realte which also happens in a few other books, but the point of this book is to pass a message on HOW to script. The examples should not need to relate in any specific manner. If you need a book that uses the same examples over and over again to get the point through, i reccomend "PHP: A visual quickstart guide" or just not attemping PHP at all and sticking to HTML. And if you do not know HTML, dont even attempt this scripting language becuase you will never be able to figure out PHP.

A Gift if you like PHP
This was not my first PHP book, and probably it is not the best first book because it doesn’t have a fun project to get you psyched. If you’ve got some of the thick books and feel like you sort of know PHP, this book is like taking a class from a master, with an emphasis on fundamentals. Disorganized and others have said some errors, but you are going to learn something. It is the book I always refer to first and it usually answers my question. I like the fact that it is thin by programming book standards. So to summarize, if you are going to buy 2 or more PHP books I highly recommend this one!

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.

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.

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!!

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!!

Extremely useful and informative book
Programming PHP is written in part by Rasmus Lerdorf, the man who first created it and is still an active member of the development community. This can only be good news.

The book is divided in chapters in a well-ordered and intuitive way. I get the impression that the authors wrote full chapters each, as they tend to vary in depth. In general, though, they present a wide variety of the features and potent of PHP, and, maybe most important, also discuss limitations.

The book can be read by people with no knowledge on the subject whatsoever, though some programming experience would come helpful. The language is clear, precise and to-the-point. Code examples are presented after each point discussed. There is useful information spread all over the book, of the technical and not-so-technical kind, and I cannot imagine anybody going through the book without learning a few new things, however experienced they may be.

Apart from chapters on the usual PHP features (strings, arrays, objects, etc.), there are subjects on commonly used web techniques (and why they are commonly used), security (server-side and scripting), writing your own PHP extensions, and one dedicated to the special relationship PHP has with windows. Personally, I believe the chapter on security alone is worth buying the book for.

Sometimes the authors give the impression they like showing off (OK, so you can double a number by left-shifting), but this is rare and unobtrusive. So, why only 4 stars? Because the book hasn’t been very well edited (at least the first edition which I have): there are spelling and coding mistakes, and the latter is not only less than expected by such a company as O’Reilly, but can severely affect a programmer’s first steps into a new language.

This said, this book is definitely worth buying. In fact, it’s the best descriptive book I’ve read on the sole subject of PHP, great as a reference book, and shouldn’t be missing from any PHP programmer’s library.