Editorial Reviews:
The PHP 4 Bible" is a comprehensive tutorial and reference to PHP. The Bible provides a clear, coherent description of PHP and how to use it whether you are a web developer, someone with ASP experience, or a C programmer. The book covers why users need PHP, how to get started, how to add PHP to HTML, and how to connect HTML web pages to databases. The authors take advantage of their own extensive experience using PHP to provides case studies of how and where to use PHP, along with advanced topics such as HTTP, cookies, redirection, building graphics, and sessions. Why you need this book: Comprehensive tutorial for PHP4: covers all the basics of PHP 4, and how to use PHP to connect HTML- and XML-based web pages to databases.Essential reference for programmers: provides extensive PHP case studies, and appendices that get you up and running quickly if you have a experience with JavaScript, ASP, Perl and C/C++Covers the key features and improvements in PHP 4Advance topics include: building graphics, classes and objects, sessions, cookies, and real-life case studiesExpert authors: Tim Converse is a programmer with experience in web developer and who instructs at the University of Chicago. Joyce Park is a writer on open source topics and web developer who creates sites using PHP.
One issue that dampens enthusiasm for open-source products is a lack of mainstream documentation and tutorials that are written by professionals. PHP 4 Bible takes care of that little detail for PHP, the cross-platform (and free) server-side scripting language for the Web. PHP 4 Bible is as comprehensive a discussion as you will find about this fascinating language, which can hold its own against commercial competitors like Microsoft Active Server Pages and Allaire ColdFusion. It covers the core elements of the language and its syntax with critical applications of PHP, such as database access and XML integration. The chapters follow a traditional tutorial style, which is helpful to those who are new to PHP. An introduction to the basic language constructs, control structures, and functions leads off this book in a comfortable way for readers who are versed in other languages, such as Visual Basic. Very practical chapters, such as "Basic PHP Gotchas," help keep students out of trouble as they get their feet wet in PHP. For database access--a critical application of PHP in the real world--the focus is appropriately on MySQL, a simple, cross-platform SQL database. Plenty of code examples and a companion Web site with downloadable code fill out this tutorial nicely. It is a one-stop way to learn PHP inside and out. --Stephen W. Plain Topics covered: - PHP syntax
- Variables
- Data types
- Control structures
- Custom functions
- Specialized functions
- File-system functions
- Style tips
- PHP "gotchas"
- SQL introduction
- Database access
- Sessions
- Cookies
- JavaScript integration
- E-mail access
- XML integration
- Object-oriented programming by using PHP
Customer Reviews:
Displaying 1 to 5 of 29 total reviews (Page 1 of 6):
 Amazing Resource for those New to PHP
This book proved to be the perfect resource for me. I am familiar with Basic, Pascal, C++, Actionscript, Lingo, and Javascript, but PHP was my first server-side language. This book is great for those new to programming, but especially helpful resource for me as I just needed the PHP syntax and an overview of the server-side workflow. extensive professional PHP
As big, extensive and detailed as this book may be, it only develops the strict necessary notions about the PHP language to allow for working on a professional basis. The "caching" topics, always important as a technique for enhancing site performances, might be more extensively developped and the book would gain in going a little deeper into templates buiders, like "Smarty" which it mentions, anyway. Thanks to the authors, I could in just one book, written with the genius of pedagogy that pertains to american authors, get all the necessary notions to understand complex structures involving Apache, Smarty, MySql and Php. Good Job !  Call it PHP 4 Beginners Guide
Very disappointed with this book. I have bought several other Bible series books and was very happy with them. I have had this book for a while now and everytime I run into a problem I grab the book and it gives me no help. The index is very poor ... you can't even look up a simple function like urlencode cause it isn't there! This is probably fine for a beginner but that is it cause once you get going with PHP there is no way you can use this book as a reference!!!  I found it mediocre
At times this book looks as if it were written by consumate programmers that assume the reader has an extensive C++ background. At other times I felt it was irrelevant. Who would write the vapid little programs they use for examples? Like so many other manuals out there, the examples are not useful for the real world.A "Bible" should have a comprehensive introduction to the basics in the beginning. This book seems to blast past that in a hurry to get to databases and other subjects. Many times something new is presented and not clarified or clarified later. An example is the modulus ( % ), they place it in an example, and then two paragraphs later they tell you what it is for and not to worry - it's all in a later chapter. An awful lot of things are brought up this way. It makes for herky jerky reading. Nothing is linear. As a reference, it's not very good. An eample would be the modulus above. I think it and other math operators should all be introduced in one place. Introduce it as a basic concept and then you can use it later. They cover math operators and then later tell you there are more math operators. The appendices in the back are flimsy and useless. More meat would be nice. In chapter 3 getting started, nothing about the installation on my PC went according to the book. The directions for setting up Windows 2000 were outdated and I had to make some guesses. The latest version of PHP does not install anything like the book says. Ya, I found out after I bought this, that they had just released a new version of the book. Unfortunatly I bought this for a class I was taking. I am stuck with it. It surprises me that a book on a language that can be installed on so many platforms has so little in it about installation issues. The size of the book is much smaller than the JavaScript Bible. How can that be? It's a much richer language.  Examples too complicated, some errors, but adequate overall
The first thing I noticed working through this book is that most of the examples are pointlessly complicated, and not even useful in the real world. There is no real layout to how functions are shown... you're given an example or two, and that's about it. Rarely do they give a detailed list of parameters, and how to properly use it. No appendix of functions for easy reference, either. The most disturbing problem is the glaring errors in the book. The biggest error is the assumption that register_globals is on, even though in recent versions of PHP it defaults to off. The code does not mention where this will matter, creating some very frustrating searches through the real PHP documentation on how to properly use a variable. I've noticed many other errors in the use of functions in the book. There is no errata on the website, either. This book is two years old, and shows it's age. Get a better PHP book... there's plenty of them. More Customer Reviews:
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(29 reviews)
