Editorial Reviews:
Revised for PHP version 4, the new edition of Core PHP Programming is a comprehensive tutorial and reference to one of today's hottest scripting languages. Part tutorial and part reference, this book will get beginners started with PHP, as well as provide a convenient desktop resource for more experienced PHP developers. Early sections show what PHP is and how it works, with basic data types, flow control, and other topics you'll need to get started. But the heart of the book is a full reference to PHP 4 functions. Organized by topic, this text provides over 400 pages of reference to several hundred PHP calls, along with a description of what they do. Clearly organized and presented, this book will help you find what you need quickly (instead of relying on PHP's often cumbersome online help). In particular, readers will appreciate the coverage of database functions, including the separate calls for MySQL, ODBC, and Oracle. You'll also see what PHP can do with XML. The last part of the book reverts to tutorial mode, first with a section on algorithms that discusses ways to sort and search PHP arrays. Final sections look at some strategies you can use to integrate PHP into the software design process, in which the strategies of combining HTML content with dynamic PHP scripts are shown. There is also useful advice for increasing performance with PHP. (It would seem that upgrading to PHP 4 is a must, because the new version offers a real performance boost.) PHP is clearly a popular choice for Web applications today. If you buy just one book on PHP, consider Core PHP Programming. It offers an approachable tutorial that will put basic PHP script development into the hands of beginners, and provides a useful reference for everyday development once you've gotten a handle on how to use it. --Richard Dragan Topics covered: - History and introduction to PHP
- Installing PHP on Apache/Unix and IIS/NT
- PHP script basics
- PHP language tutorial (including data types, variables, and operators)
- Flow control statements
- PHP functions (arguments, recursion, and dynamic function calls)
- Single and multidimensional arrays
- PHP classes
- Creating Web pages in PHP
- Environment variables
- File uploads and file I/O
- PHP session management
- PHP function reference
- I/O functions (including files and compressed files, session handling, network I/O, and FTP)
- Data functions (including arrays, hashing, strings, and regular expressions)
- Mathematical functions
- Date and time functions
- Image functions
- Database functions (including support for MySQL, ODBC, Oracle, and Postgres)
- Miscellaneous functions (including XML functions)
- Algorithms for sorting and searching in PHP
- Parsing and tokenizing strings
- Database programming how-to
- Authenticating
- Sending e-mail
- Software engineering basics with PHP
- Integrating PHP and HTML
- Using CVS for version control
- Optimization hints
Customer Reviews:
Displaying 1 to 5 of 121 total reviews (Page 1 of 25):
 Worse than useless
Consider the following passage from the text:
"I've written one example that uses most of the functions in this section. It's near the description of xml_set_element_handler and figure 14.5." (p. 562)
Leaving aside the fact that the authors were too lazy to reference the item by page number (and the publishers too slack to pick them up on it), you turn to the relevant section to find that it's left up to you to figure out which is the "example" (out of three pages of functions) the author had in mind.
This attitude suffuses through the book: nothing is explained in sequence, and there's no process of cumulative learning. Each chapter consists of a brief and largely useless intro to the topic at hand, and the rest is just a barrage of function definitions ... in alphabetical order. Each function definition uses esoteric terminology explained only in some other function defintion, but since you have no idea where *that* is, you're lost straight away.
Avoid ... like the plague. Under-whelming and a tree killer
The Core XXX series is printed by Prentice-Hall and the whole series suffers from bloat. This one has a 13 page (!) table of contents and just a few pages less than Bruce Eckel's masterful Thinking in Java 1100+ pages. A huge tome with no mention of the PHP command line. The only graphic is on the cover. Great though for the visually impaired with huge type. The writing style is not friendly, the presentation is not a tutorial in any sense. There may be lots of things in this book, but much more refernce book style than a learn-from book. When a scripting language takes on the characteristics of full-blown languages like C++ and Java, I think something is wrong. If you need to see some real-life coding examples that you can learn from, just Google 'php examples'. These are real meat-and-potatos code that will satisfy your real need which is to make PHP do things. While the programming talents of the authors is un-questionable, the writing talents displayed here are minimal. Overweight, overpriced and totally under-whelming. big, friendly and not useful
[Reviewing 2nd edition.] This is definitely not a CORE quality book (especially compared to the outstanding CORE Java series).
Section 1, 100 pages of introductory material, tell you what RAM is (sort of), but doesn't tell you what happens when a cookie and a POST variable have the same name.
Section 2, 450 pages of this book, is a function reference, but the online php manual is free, easier to read and has more examples.
Section 3 has some exploratory examples -- I think there are better examples in the online manual and elsewhere on the net.
The book is confused about its audience. Beginning programmers should NOT start with php (or any scripting language) unless they are forced to put up a php web site overnight -- in which case they need a "cookbook", which this is definitely not. Experienced programmers will be terminally frustrated with the book's disorganization, poor layout and lack of crucial information.
Summary: It's not a cookbook, not a usable reference book and has no best practices advice.  Great work for intermediate level users
One deniable fact of the book is the presentation. The presentation is simple and easy to understood. Language used is simple , attractive and not complicated as others. Explanations are clear and direct to the point , embedded with examples which makes the book worth. Its a rare ability in programmers/ developers to put into simple words, but the author has possed such skills. Another added advantage is the organization of the book itself. Organized in such way , thats to introduce PHP and Web based developments efficiently to newbie or intermediate users whom is seeking to improve the coding style. Explains are so beneficial with so many functions explained by using example and thats great for beginners. But if you are a experienced and advance level user, this book might not satisfy your need, but rather a quick reference with example for advance users. Chapter on Software Engineering is another strentgh, presented in simpler way on how someone could achieve/acquire the designing skills as the desinging skills is equally important with coding. An intelligent coding could be handicapped with a poor design. Basically , new users and intermediate users will benefit alot from this book.  a great way to start
this book is a great way to start programming php. it is the book I used to learn php. It goes into the basics well, and doesn't dig too deep into the code.it's definately not your choice when looking for a detailed reference. it *is* your choice when looking for a book to learn php from, or to use as a reference when just starting out. More Customer Reviews:
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