Preface
PHP is a powerful yet easy-to-use tool for creating dynamic web content. The perfect language for projects great and small, PHP is used by Yahoo!, millions of personal home pages, and everything in-between. Best of all, PHP is open source and runs on Unix, Windows, and Mac OS X.
The latest version, PHP 5, contains robust support for object-oriented programming, an integrated suite of XML tools, an all-new MySQL extension, web services with SOAP and REST, and hundreds of other improvements.
There are so many updates and new features, it’s difficult to get a handle on all the changes. Documentation is scarce, scattered, and rarely in-depth. This book steadily guides you from the world of PHP 4 to PHP 5, covering what’s completely new, what’s received an overhaul, and what’s just slightly different enough to slip you up.
Who This Book Is For
This is the PHP 5 book for PHP 4 programmers. If you’re currently using PHP and want to learn what’s new in PHP 5, you should buy this book. Unlike other PHP 5 books, Upgrading to PHP 5 assumes you’re familiar with PHP, so it doesn’t waste your time discussing how to process forms and query databases.
Instead, Upgrading to PHP 5 shows you a complete collection of detailed examples covering all the latest and greatest features of PHP 5. Object-oriented programming? Check. MySQL? Check. XML? Check. If it’s part of PHP 5, it’s part of this book.
Besides showing off PHP 5, this book also eases your migration from PHP 4 to PHP 5. As a veteran PHP ...