Programming PHP, 2nd Edition

Audience

PHP is a melting pot of cultures. Web designers appreciate its accessibility and convenience, while programmers appreciate its flexibility, power, diversity, and speed. Both cultures need a clear and accurate reference to the language. If you are a programmer, then this book is for you. We show the big picture of the PHP language, and then discuss the details without wasting your time. The many examples clarify the explanations, and the practical programming advice and many style tips will help you become not just a PHP programmer, but a good PHP programmer.

If you’re a web designer, you will appreciate the clear and useful guides to specific technologies, such as XML, sessions, PDF generation, and graphics. And you’ll be able to quickly get the information you need from the language chapters, which explain basic programming concepts in simple terms.

This book has been fully revised to cover the latest features of PHP Version 5. We have endeavored to even talk about some of the features that were still on the drawing board while we were writing this edition. One feature in particular is the new PDO database interface that was still in development during our writing, but we felt it important enough to cover in the discussion on databases (Chapter 8).