PHP and MySQL® Web Development, Fourth Edition

1 PHP Crash Course

THIS CHAPTER GIVES YOU A QUICK OVERVIEW of PHP syntax and language constructs. If you are already a PHP programmer, it might fill some gaps in your knowledge. If you have a background using C, Perl Active Server Pages (ASP), or another programming language, it will help you get up to speed quickly.

In this book, you’ll learn how to use PHP by working through lots of real-world examples taken from our experiences building real websites. Often, programming textbooks teach basic syntax with very simple examples. We have chosen not to do that. We recognize that what you do is to get something up and running, and understand how the language is used, instead of plowing through yet another syntax and function reference that’s no ...