Product Description
If you've ever wanted to learn how to develop web applications for mobile devices, Beginning Web Development for Smartphones is for you! This book will lead you through all the code necessary for a sample bookstore application using PHP, MySQL, and jQTouch.The book covers : * Building small applications with jQTouch * Change themes, adding panels, displaying titles automatically, highlighting information * Getting user's information through forms * Applying validity checks to input fields * Understanding navigation via panel and toolbar buttons * Introduction to PHP programming, AJAX technology, and MySQL commands * Accessing MySQL from PHP * Understanding client- and server-side databases * Creating client-side database tables * Inserting, fetching, and updating rows in server- and client-side databases * Querying server-side database tables * Understanding session management, localStorage, and sessionStorage ... Read more

Product Description
Publishing in tandem with the long-awaited release of PHP 6, this book reveals the inside scoop for pushing the limits of how to maximize the full feature set of PHP 6. You’ll learn how to use PHP 6 in the larger scheme of enterprise-class software development and practical examples and behind-the-scenes information will improve your skills for designing and building better large-scale, high-performance platforms using PHP 6. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Great book

This is an excellent book at this time to get to know more about PHP6 and prepare for the new way.

best

Solid book but not much about PHP 6
As other reviewers have noted, this book doesn't have much about PHP 6. Mostly because PHP 6 has yet to be finalized. But this book is quite good about laying out PHP. I highly recommend reading it even if you already have a PHP background. The examples given in the book are excellent and for the most part are things that might come up in real life.

This book is not for beginners who want to learn PHP, unless you already have a strong background in programming.

A Good PHP6 Book for Object Oriented PHP and Advanced Techniques
Reading this book and practicing its code was what helped me transition from a regular PHP5 programmer to a professional one that understands Object Oriented aspects of PHP that is the highlight of PHP6.
This book has everything that is needed to make the transition.
The first 127 pages do a good job of describing classes, objects, and interfaces in PHP5. Then it goes into Advanced Development Techniques. Lastly in Pushing PHP to its limits, I found some interesting things.
So, in general, I liked this book as well as other books by the same publisher about PHP5, etc.
But three things seem to create some difficulties for me:
1. I think that they should have used mySQL as primary DB language.
2. The examples in this book are too involved. If you lose track at some point in the middle, then you might have a difficult time catching up later. This is so because the examples keep building complication on top of each other and a missing gap or a skipped section will prevent you from complete understanding of the rest of the book.
3. Book goes into tangential more than is needed. Planning and scheduling is not that related to this topic.
A copy of this book sits in front of me on my desk and I refer to it a lot as I write code.

Quite interesting, but nothing about PHP6
This book is NOT about PHP6 as itself.

There is nothing about coming features, how they are going to be, etc.

This books is more about best practices in project, designs and coding styles.

This was disapointing, but still I got some interesting ideas from this book.
... Read more

Product Description
Practical solutions to real-world problems
This practicalguide gives you 100 ready-to-run PHP functions for solving most of themain problems you encounter when building a dynamic website with PHP.Every plug-in in the book offers a complete and working solution for aresult you can achieve right away, using ready-made code you simply drop into your own program. And there's little or no learning curve, because each one is self-contained and thoroughly documented.

Packed with tips and suggestions
Plug-in PHP is packed with programming tips and suggestions for further adaptingthe functions to your own needs, and even breaks down all the variables, arrays and functions used by each into at-a-glance tables, accompaniedby a screen grab of every function in action. This makes the bookextremely easy to use, even for complete beginners to PHP programming.

Real world solutions
Plug-in PHP has everything you need for:

• Processing text
• Image uploading and manipulation
• Content management
• Forms and user input
• Integrating your website with others
• Creating chat and messaging services
• Using MySQL
• Managing sessions and cookies
• Dealing with APIs; RSS; and XML
• Integrating with JavaScript and Ajax
• Accessing geo-location
• Spell checking and language translation
• A great deal more...

Customer Reviews (2)

Great Book that's easy to understand!
This book is great if you want quick apps for your website. It includes such examples as how to determine the number on users currently viewing the page and how to add bing maps to your pages. The author's style of writing is good. His explanation of the code is great and easy to follow. I have not encountered any errors while playing around with the code.

I give it a 5/5.

Taking PHP to the Next Level
A well laid-out book that serves both as a textbook and reference manual. The author, Robin Nixon, keeps your interest by introducing plug-ins adaptable for today's world of webs, should you be seeking how-to information on such things as RSS feeds, Twitter, chat rooms, and more.

Throughout the book, Mr. Nixon applies security measures to prevent hacks nad spam from affecting your website. His use and explanation of Regular Expression have helped me understand its power better.

Should you have a problem with any of the examples and/or plug-ins, help is only an email away. Robin Nixon has responded quickly to every question I've put to him.

I recommend this book to be added to anybody's library who has a working interest in web development. ... Read more

Product Description
Together, PHP & MySQL form the most widely used open source database and scripting technologies on the Web today. As a budding Web Developer, you need to learn and master PHP & MySQL.

Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL is a hands-on guide to learning all the tools, principles and techniques needed to build a fully functional database-driven Website using PHP & MySQL.

This book covers everything from installing PHP & MySQL under Windows or Linux, through to building a live Web-based content management system.

It also covers more advanced topics such as the storage of binary data in MySQL, and cookies and sessions in PHP, and comes complete with a set of PHP and MySQL reference tables that include PHP and MySQL syntax, functions, column types and more.

This book not only provides easy access to all the code samples demonstrated, but, more importantly, it leaves you with the confidence and know-how to adapt the principles and techniques to your own Web design projects.

This book will show you how to:

- Build a working Content Management System Add, edit & delete Web content without using HTML

- Setup automatic backups of your database

- Increase your database security (Chapter 8)

- Optimize the loading time of your Website (Chapter 9)

- Build an ecommerce shopping cart (Chapter 12)

- Automatically send email on triggered events (Chapter 10)

- Handle file uploads using HTML forms (Chapter 10)

- Build a Web-based file repository or photo gallery

- Utilize sessions and cookies to track site visitors

- Master MySQL Database Administration. (Chapter 8)

- And a whole lot more…

Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL is an essential resource for budding Web Developers. If you want to go beyond the limitations of a static site and learn to build dynamic, database-driven Websites, this book will show you how. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (47)

Rip Off - Stay Away
This book comes with a CD in the back with lots of examples to learn from... at least it's supposed to. Actually you have to download the examples off the publisher's website (for an additional price, of course).
As for teaching PHP and MySQL, it's not worth it.I followed the examples to the letter but couldn't get PHP to work with MySQL. (Couldn't even get them to talk to each other)
If you're going to waste your money on this though, I *highly* recommend you order directly from the publisher, since it "seems" if you do, you might get the examples for free (maybe), but don't waste your money on this.

Great book, extremely helpful.
This book was great!It helped step through the basic and not so basic aspects of mysql and how it relates to php. The examples were easy to follow, but not condescending.It was helpful to have online access to the code.I really enjoyed the fact that he would give you enough information to understand the concept, but then had you figure things out on your own before giving the rest of the program.I have been impressed at the detail and helpfulness of this book.

Excellent book!
An excellent book for the very beginner to intermediate user, providing a lot of knowledge in the area of PHP and MYSQL. You will learn about relational database design, how to make a content management system, advanced SQL queries, etc. At the end you will use what you learned to create a dynamic driven website.

Book is too old
This book is way out of date. There are more up to date versions available.

Great for biginners, but out of date for today.
True to Site Point's method and style, this book makes it easy to jump into the basics of it's subject. Easy to navigate and full of helpful tips and hints, all the matieral is easy to access.
However a word of warning for those who may wish to purchase this book- get a newer version! This version covers PHP4.0 which is being discontinued from use in November of 2007. Learning PHP4.0 will not be very helpful after November, so Look for the newer version of this book and you will be set.
I found this to be the newest version as of this posting: Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP and MySQL
I was quite sad when I realized I had purchased, and then read through, the whole book and then found out that PHP4 will be discontinued. You need PHP5 or PHP6 to be effective and up to date.
Also, if you are not an absolute beginner at the subject, this book is probably not for you. You can find more advanced books on the subject that will help you in your php quest. I found the first couple of chapters to be a bore, and maybe even an insult, because they covered 'how to use windows' how to open notepad, or how to do the equivalent in mac. ... Read more

Product Description
Find real-world solutions to PHP programming problems

Simplify and shorten the PHP application development cycle using the in-depth information contained in this hands-on guide. PHP Programming Solutions clearly lays out more than 250 programming challenges alongside practical solutions, functioning code, detailed explanations, and usage tips.

Inside, you'll learn to manipulate strings and arrays, work with HTML and Web pages, accept and validate user input, parse XML code, and resolve programming problems using PEAR and PECL widgets and extensions. Plus, you'll get detailed coverage of PHP security issues, SQL database interaction, debugging techniques, and error processing.

• Work with numbers, strings, dates, times, files, and directories
• Build complex data structures using PHP's array manipulation API
• Use functions and classes to build modular, reusable code 
• Create, update, and cache HTML documents and Web content
• Obtain and process user input submitted via online forms
• Protect, log, and debug PHP script actions
• Authenticate and track users with sessions and cookies
• Traverse, validate, and transform XML documents
• Store and retrieve data from MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle databases
• Interface with different server types, network protocols, and file formats
• Perform efficient exception handling and error processing

Customer Reviews (2)

PHP Programming Solutions
I purchesed this book hoping it would give good examples. NOT!!! Just another book for people who already know what they are doing. Now this is my opinion and this book did nothing to help explain the INCLUDE function or how to handle directories in php which is the help I was looking for.

A targeted PHP reference manual
PHP Programming Solutions is a good general purpose reference book targeted toward intermediate-level PHP programmers.The examples are simple and complete enough that it's possible a beginner could learn PHP from the book.

It is organized like a catalog, and quite frankly most of the information in it could be found by doing a simple Google search.But if you're like me, and enjoy having a book in front of you, I'd highly recommend it.

Something I didn't like about the examples was the heavy reliance on the PEAR libraries.For someone who's looking only to solve the problem at hand... in PHP... this will undoubtedly be adequate.Someone interested in more detailed explanations, such that the solution may be generally applied to other languages, may be disappointed in this aspect of the book, as I was. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the second edition of the popular introductory book to the PHP programming language. Taking into account the latest changes in PHP, the book covers everything that the Web developer needs to know to start building dynamic Web sites today. Even if you’ve never programming a single variable or function before in your life, you’ll be able to follow along with the book’s material, creating relevant, useful code in the process. Throughout the book, you'll find sample scripts and projects as well as the timesaving tips and techniques that have become the hallmark of the popular Visual QuickStart series. A companion Web site offers all of the book's scripts for download as well as a support forum where you can ask questions from the author and other readers like yourself. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (80)

AUN NO RECIBO EL LIBRO
BUENOS DIAS, AUN NO HE RECIBIDO EL LIBRO QUE COMPRE, POR FAVOR INDIQUEME QUE DEBO HACER PARA LOGRAR RECIBIRLO O QUE ME REEMBOLSEN EL DINERO.

GRACIAS

Not a feather in the visual quickstart guide's cap
This book covers the basics pretty well, but on more advanced topics such as mysql and regular expressions this book seriously lacks. The examples are way to simple and not very helpful at all. His section on simple query language is down right terrible. The regular expressions exmamples are inane and unpractical. What good does it do to introduce metacharacters, quantifiers and classes if you don't show real examples of how to use them. I would go with a more recent book. Hopefully Ullman has improved since this edition, which is lousy.

Great for beginners to PHP
This book is great for the absolute beginner. It walks you through the basics, with examples side-by-side explanations of the methods and why the code looks the way it does.

Awesome!!!
I received tis product in a timely manner (in time for class), and it was in excellent condition when it got here! This text book has been extremely helpful in learning PHP, and is one of the many tools I am using to further my Web Design knowledge.

PHP for the World Wide Web (QuickStart Guide)
This is a very well written technical reference. The examples are so good that I was able to get my 1st PHP web page up quickly even though I hadn't been through the entire book. Larry Ullman's book has passed my personal test -- I got something useful done. I'm now in the process of reading the entire book and using the sample code to more properly learn PHP. I have a number of QuickStart books and they are all excellent. They are on my sites recommended reading list. [...] ... Read more

Product Description
What is this book about?

With the release of PHP 5 and the Zend Engine 2, PHP finally graduates from it earliest days as a lightweight scripting syntax to an powerful object oriented programming language that can hold its own against the Java and .NET architectures that currently dominate corporate software development. This book has a pragmatic focus on how to use PHP in the larger scheme of enterprise-class software development.

What does this book cover?

Unlike Java or .NET, there is little discussion of the application of design patterns, component architectures, and best-practices to the development of applications using PHP. Software written in the absence of this sort of higher-order architecture will never be able to match the robust frameworks that Java and .NET ship with out of the box. This book addresses this issue by covering the following material: 

• Part 1 discusses the OO concepts that were initially explored in Beginning PHP 5 and a demonstration of how to implement them in PHP 5. This section also covers UML modeling and provides a brief introduction to project management techniques that are covered in more depth in Part 4.
• Parts 2 and 3 present objects and object hierarchies that, when completed, comprise a robust toolkit that developers will be able to reuse on future projects. These chapters are designed to arm the professional PHP developer with the sort of constructs that are available out of the box with platforms such as Java and .NET — from simple utility classes like Collection and Iterator, to more complex constructs like Model/View/Controller architectures and state machines.
• Part 4 shows how to use the toolkit from Parts 2 and 3 to create real-world applications. We look at the development of a robust contact management system that will leverage the componentry and concepts already discussed and introduce project management and software architecture concepts that enable developers to accurately identify business requirements, design scalable, extensible platforms, and handle change management effectively. It covers the waterfall and spiral project management paradigms and include a discussion on eXtreme Programming and other approaches to software development.
• The Appendices include an extended discussion on the effective use of CVS, introduce the Zend Studio IDE and related tools, and discuss performance tuning and scalability.

Customer Reviews (19)

Really. Not. Good.
Ok, before you buy this book check the publisher's forums (Wrox). It's a bad sign when you see a 3 page thread concerning errors (both with code and grammar).

Of course I didn't follow my own advice. So I'm stuck. ;(

Don't make the same mistake.

Not very professional
This book has taught me a few things, but probably not what the authors intended. A lot of the code is overly complicated (sometimes the code is just bad), and as such I've had to dumb down a number of their examples to better suit myself. There's only one part that I really found useful - the Generic Object class (it's very useful in MVC applications/frameworks).
This book assumes you'll be using PostgreSQL, which most PHP devs don't. There's no reason not to use MySQL. This isn't a huge deal if you have your own DB class already, but it will be a pain if you don't.
Something else that really bugged me was the inconsistency of the code, especially naming conventions. Having multiple authors supply code is fine, but it should appear as if it's all from one source. They should have picked a naming convention and stuck with it.
There are some good concepts in this book, but it's often buried beneath overly complicated code. What I really learned from this book is how to take the authors' code and make it better. I bought this book hoping to gain a better understanding of OOP and MVC - I would have been better off reading online tutorials (DevShed, OnLamp, Zend Developer Zone). If I had to buy this book again, I wouldn't, and I don't recommend that you buy it either.

Needed to be reviewed.
This book would have a lot of potential if only it had been edited properly.There are simply too many inconsistencies and outright mistakes for me to give this book a good review.The concepts are nice, and ideas good, and the wording easy to read.Problem is, I don't feel I can trust any of the examples, and I learn by example. It doesn't feel like the authors bothered to read their own book.

For Intermediate Developers with Intelligence
This book is great for experienced developers looking for some ideas in how you can use PHP to implement your application designs.

There are some obvious mistakes and bad design choices in the book, but most intelligent developers will spot these.

The last part of the book is an end-to-end review of a PHP5 life cycle, and it's pretty worthless if you're at all a postmodern developer.

This book is good for some programming ideas and for scratching the surface of how to design good PHP5 web applications.

Great breadth, questionable concepts
I gave it 3 stars for the inspiration that the discussion of a great breadth of PHP/OOP topics provides. There's everything from design techniques to coding practices to project management. Unfortunately, the treatment of most topics is somewhat cursory and many of the code examples are either not thought out carefully or don't work. Thus the code, although it takes up a substantial part of the book, has to be seen as illustration material only. Some of the concepts I found confusing. For example, I am not quite able to understand the purpose of a collection class (chapter 5), given PHP's dynamical typing and associative arrays. Furthermore, the MVC model (chapter 13) is introduced as having a fourth "infrastructure" component. I am not sure what architecture model this would constitute, but it is probably not an MVC model. There are many such quirks in ths book. Programmers who are interested in advanced OOP concepts will find this book to be a good overview of methodical -as opposed to ad hoc- software construction with PHP. In order to actually learn and apply these techniques, a more thorough introduction to object-oriented theory and design is probably required. ... Read more

Product Description
You have probably heard a lot about Design Patterns—a technique that helps you design rock-solid solutions to practical problems that programmers everywhere encounter in their day-to-day work.

Even though there has been a lot of buzz, however, no-one has yet come up with a comprehensive resource on design patterns for PHP developers—until today.

Author Jason E. Sweat's book php|architect's Guide to PHP Design Patterns is the first, comprehensive guide to design patterns designed specifically for the PHP developer. This book includes coverage of 16 design patterns with a specific eye to their applications in PHP when building complex web applications, both in PHP 4 and PHP 5 (where appropriate, sample code for both versions of the language is provided). With a thorough, test-driven approach, this book represents the definitive guide to design patterns for the PHP developer.

As you can expect from a php|architect book, this Guide is very focused on its topic, with none of the fluff that accompanies the large, expensive titles you sometimes find at the bookstore. Naturally, this doesn't come at the expense of depth of coverage or clarity: the book contains tens of scripts that give you a practical overview of every topic covered, from top to bottom. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

best design pattern book for PHP yet.
I'm relatively new to objects and design patterns and have been learning them for only the last 4 months. As most people know PHP 5 was the first iteration of a half way decent obeject implementation in PHP. Therefore there is just now beginning to be OO related design books on the market for this functionality. I've bought them all as my opinion is this on trumps the rest. It's not going to tell you much on object theory or PHP's object syntax. However when it comes to design architecture it's be best I've found for PHP specifically. Outside of that if you're looking for good Design Pattern and Architecture theory stuff you should start reading Java based books as there's some really good ones.

Great book!
This book is great, like any other O'Reilly books.It's helpful to those who already have knowledge of PHP.

Ok book, but could've been way better
First off I don't enjoy giving a bad mark to other people's effort. It's often too easy to put a tag value on something we had nothing to do with and even bad books are well intentioned. That been said, this book is far from being bad. The content is actually pretty good and Jason E. Sweat succeeds very well in explaining the patterns and their application in PHP. However, there's room for improvement and although I was really looking forward to give some kudos, I did have some issues with the book. I took some time to review it to help make it better in subsequent editions.

My opinions are made upon a few assumptions. Some may agree others may not, which is the point of a personal review, if you share my point of view chances are that you'll experience the same thing.

1) I presume that anyone deciding to learn about design patterns is probably serious about Object Oriented Programming and anyone serious about OOP in PHP should probably switch from PHP4 to PHP5. This book has been out for about a year and a half. PHP5 was already on course to acquire wide acceptance, yet Jason chose to code mainly in PHP4, which is clearly crippled in its OO implementation compared to PHP5.

This is not so much of an issue in chapters where pattern implementation is very similar in both versions, but at times the lack of true OO features in PHP4 made it tedious to go through the examples and I felt like just skipping the PHP4 parts and go straight to the PHP5 ones. It wasn's easy because only some of these examples have a PHP5 equivalent.

We are therefore often confined to make sense of all the turn around techniques deployed to mimic the simplest features natural to true OOP, like the underscore naming convention to emulate private variables, using global variables to emulate staticity, prepending the ampersand (&) to pass objects by reference and other little 'tricks' that succeed more at veering attention away from the pattern at hand to language features.


2) I presume that most people who got this book did because of the two keywords in the title 'Design Patterns'. Yet there is as much, if not more, about Test Driven Development (TDD) using Simpletest as there is about design patterns. Don't get me wrong, TDD is an excellent coding practice, but as much as it can be practiced along with design patterns both can be clearly isolated. If, like me, you learn by focusing on one specific topic at a time, you will find this book's approach very annoying at times.

First, it's an informal introduction to TDD. You will probably need more support from a more specific text on TDD before really becoming proficient at it, so I don't see the point in trying to actually teach it along with design patterns. An introductory chapter would have been enough (the Mockobject Pattern chapter was perfect for this) and maybe an appendix with links to tests for the examples for those interested.

Second, Jason's insistence to test every bit of piece of code makes the reading even more tedious. Examples are cluttered with tests and the logic doesn't flow as smoothly anymore. Plus, TDD is an iterative coding process, meaning that you write a little test and then you implement just enough logic for the test to pass, then you add some more test and then you... repeat until done. If in real life the overall result can be good, it is not very practical to try and reproduce it in a book. Your tests may never be exhaustive or meaningful enough to actually matter and you may be constrained to use examples a tad bit too simplistic to illustrate your point, which is exactly what happens in this book.

I felt that the introduction of TDD in the book was meant exactly as a separate attempt at explaining that technique, not as a support to understand design patterns and the two topics became somehow intertwined and less substantial. Trying to chase a rooster and a rabbit, we're left with a chick and a bunny.

Here are my recommendations for the next edition:
- Forget php4
- Keep TDD for another book or introduce it in the mockobject pattern chapter or an appendix
- Concentrate on design patterns
- Include more solid examples
- Work more on refactoring solutions to really show how they remap to patterns

PHP, Design Patterns, OOP (great book)
A great book for design patterns comprehension in PHP. There is a huge variety of patterns explained in this book, which helped me a lot. It also provides a very well written text with an easy comprehension, even for beginners in design patterns area.

Book review
This book provides an quick insight of current OO patterns. Content is somewhat usefull, but related to much to testing patterns. It's good for a beginner programmer who want to start a project using OO.

The quality of the paper and ink is like a home made printed book. The price is too high for that quality.

... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (24)

Doesn't Cover Everything
I have been programming in PHP for about 5 years now. I was looking for a printed reference to the language, essentially a dictionary for PHP, and decided to buy this. Although it documents some functions well, it does not document them all - for example it does not mention the htmlspecialchars function anywhere in the book. Another bad point that I noticed is that it feels very much like the first version, which it is, and has typos; even typos in the documentation of core functions like labeling htmlentities as "html_entities" (real function does not have an underscore).

My recommendation would be to find something else, or wait until they publish the 2nd edition.

Worst O'reilly I own
I pretty much go to [...] for everything I need to know about PHP. This book gives the most cursory introduction to every topic from the now extinct MING to CLI PHP, which I'm currently exploring. On CLI, this book doesn't mention how to get command line arguments into your script, for instance. It's pretty easy to do, and figure out if you've used PHP enough and gotten familiar with its api.

I've never gotten what I was looking for from this book, except it's reference on array functions is useful.

PHP in a Nutshell (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly))
Good book, I bought it used and you can see it is but it's in average to good condition.

I'd buy from these people again.

A must have for the webmster
It's not only a quite good reference book, but for the people with a good programming skill it's actually anything you need to learn PHP.

Definitely a must in the bookshelf of everybody involved in working with the WWW. from webmasters to developers and support workers, but also for the geek who just enjoys playing with a programming language like this.

Poor.Lack or attention to detail (See list of errors, and decide for yourself)
Regarding the Oct 2005 - First edition.I sure hope O'Reilly hires a better proof-reader, and re-issues this book with some basic corrections, and 100% more attention to the index problems.

I think the author did a poor job. A dedicated proofreader should have caught all the errors I have listed. I am only 20% through this book. At this point, this author has built zero confidence in the accuracy of anything he has to present in the rest of the book.I will now proceed to prove where my 'poor' evaluation comes from.


(My background: 25 years of programming, including skills with various machine languages,
assembly languages, Fortran, Pascal, PL/1, C, C++, Java, PHP, and Regular Expressions.)

Stated by the author: "This book assumes you are familiar with variables, lops, and other basic programming concepts [period]."This is incorrect, as other reviewers have noted.The author quickly drifts into examples of arrays, objects, advanced operators, etc. with no explanation, or even a reference to the section of the book that covers these new concepts.

Starting with "The PHP Language" section, I am finding an error or obvious omission, on an average of every three pages. This book has been poorly proof-read, and should not have made it past the publisher in this form.I expect far more accurate text that this, for an O'Reilly publication.

As for the six people whom the author lists as standing out particularly,
with regards to contributing corrections, improvements, and comments . . . I couldn't imagine how bad this work would be without their efforts.

Page 32: Using complex data forms and concepts in examples, without providing page references.
Here, arrays are introduced.Would it be so hard to add a footnote
"See the extensive Arrays section, starting on page 61."?

page 32: Same comment, applied to 'Objects'

Page 32: Same comment, applied to the '->' object operator.

( Page 132:"use the special -> operator". Other PHP documentation calls this the 'object operator', but this author does not use this literal phrase. There is also no index entry for this phrase, or any reference to it under 'operator' or 'object'. )

Page 42: 'Returning by Reference'. This obscure concept really needs an explanation of what is happening in the 5-line example.According to the 'Variable Scope' explanation (ten pages later),
the variable in this function is local, and is therefore not reference-able outside the function.
Yet the description of "Returning by Reference' indicate that the value of the variable is accessible.

Page 45: Introducing the capability of the GLOBALS array, with no caveats, for the purpose of overriding
scope.Ten pages later, in a different topic (Superglobals), we find the warning: "two superglobals that you should avoid ... $GLOBALS...".The warning should be on page 45, where you first start describing this superglobal. Again, has this author never heard of the literary construct called a footnote?

Page 51: In an example, '(int)' is used to typecast a bool into an integer. At the top of the next page, the typecast operation is written in another example as '(integer)'. If both syntaxes are supported, this sure would be a good place to note that.

Page 64: In the example, function_load_member.A $ID parameter is passed, but not used.Probably the "Bob" literal should be $ID.

Page 64: Same code example as above. This two line function has one assignment, and one return statement ('return true;'). The calling code evaluates the completion of this function as if there are multiple
methods of return; i.e. true or false.The text ahead of his example loosely implies that if the function was not 'successful' (whatever that means), the returned boolean will be 'false'.

Page 66: Array_intersect() with multiple arrays parameters. There is no indication if this is an AND or an OR operation, with multiple secondary arrays.That is, will an array1 entry be returned if it is in array2 *OR* array3, or must it be in array2 *AND* array3?

- - -

One thing the author did get correct is in his list of web-sites.The TOP entry is www.php.net/manual , and it consistently clears up the errors the author makes.I recommend it. ... Read more

Product Description

• The combination of Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP is popular because of interaction, flexibility, customization, and-most importantly-the cost effectiveness of its components
• Helps LAMP professionals take their skills to the next level with in-depth discussions of OOP; extensions of PHP such as PEAR, GD, XML, and CURL; improving site security; and advanced tools available to the coder
• Those proficient in other languages such as Java, C++, Perl and ASP will find this guide invaluable when transitioning to the LAMP environment
• The Web site includes sample scripts created in the course of each chapter, and several applications that can be modified and reused

Customer Reviews (3)

Mostly covers PHP
This book only gives rudimentary coverage of MySQL or Apache.

Twenty one pages in the chapter for 'Advanced MySQL' -- really! 13 pages of this is a review of SQL, how to do queries, updates, deletes, etc.

Apache got 35 pages and was a little better. It did have info on rewriting URLs but a lot of time was spent on rewrite patterns and rules. Many of the other items and configuration settings could be gleamed from the Apache configuration file.

I really was disappointed as I expected more of a discussion of PHP in the context of MySQL and Apache. I wish the authors had spent as much time on the other subjects as they did on PHP.

Linux -- wasn't even in the table of contents or the index and I didn't see anything that was even close.

The discussion of PHP covered subjects like installing packages, code effeciency and PHP extensions and was adequate.

Maybe the book should be called "PHP Packages Available".

The Next Level
I just finished reading Professional LAMP. These four components make for quite a powerful open source solution. It is being used at the enterprise level, with companies such as Yahoo and Google taking advantage of the flexibility if can offer. This book is ideal for anyone wanting to delve further into this development environment. As far as I know, it is the first book to cover LAMP at the professional level. The full listing of chapter topics covered are as follows:

1. What's New in PHP5
2. PHP5 Object Oriented Programming
3. More Obscure PHP
4. Advanced MySQL
5. PHP Configuration
6. Apache Tricks
7. Site Security
8. PEAR and PECL
9. Code Efficiency
10. PHP Extensions
11. AJAX
12. Caching Engines
13. Content Management Systems

As you can maybe tell, the above topics are a bit light on the "L" aspect of LAMP. Linux is covered briefly, addressed as the platform on which the AMP aspect runs. To be honest, I did not expect that this book would be a comprehensive look at Linux, because there is already a plethora of books out there. This book addresses in detail many aspects of Apache, MySQL and PHP.

- What's New in PHP5

This chapter covers the changes between PHP versions 4 and 5. This includes object-oriented programming, new functions, configuration changes, mysqli, XML support, Tidy library extension, and SQLite. Suffice it to say, there is quite a bit of information to absorb from this comprehensive first chapter.

- PHP5 OOP

This chapter opened with a good discussion on procedural versus object oriented programming. It then moved on to cover class definitions, methods and instances. One of the things I thought was cool is abstract, which allows you to create a class that can be extended by others. Using OOP methods also allows you to build an extensible API so that developers can create their own plugins. One such example would be peppers that people make for Mint.

- More Obscure PHP

This chapter was great, and helped to clear up some confusion for me. It covered some of the history behind Perl and C that led to PHP coming into its own. Like many languages, PHP has been around long enough that there is some "legacy" code still packaged in it. These relics remain only for backwards compatibility with older applications. Much like target="_blank" and iframe are deprecated as of XHTML 1.0 Strict, there are some things in PHP that are no longer supposed to be used, though they are still supported.

Anyway, the point is that PHP has breadth and depth that many programmers never even touch. They describe it like the English language, that though we understand quite a bit of terminology, most of us only use a small portion of it in our own daily vocabulary. Examples of things covered in this chapter are: callbacks, array_map(), array_walk(), array_filter(), preg_replace_callback(), call_user_func_array(), create_function(), glob() and creating streams.

They even discuss the code necessary to create an aerial orthophoto database query, such as would be seen in Google Maps' satellite view. They cover various compression methods for PNG files that make up the series of photos. I have to admit, it is pretty heady stuff, so you'll just have to check it out for yourself.

- Advanced MySQL

In this chapter, a simulated list of cars at an auto dealership is presented. They show you how to maintain data based on manufacturer, model, paint color, etc. There are many code examples for creating new entries, modifying existing data, and joining / merging tables. Also covered is how to use a MySQL database with the InnoDB storage engine, as opposed to the default MyISAM. Some of the benefits to this include transactions, row-level locking, and foreign key constraints. The one major drawback is lack of full-text searching. They also show you how to switch back and forth between MyISAM and InnoDB on the fly, should you ever need to use both in any particular situation.

In addition, the process of granting / revoking user priviledges is covered, which is a crucial aspect to understand if you want to have different tiers of access to different sections of your data. For instance, you might want the administrator to be able to affect everything, whereas your staff worker you would only want to be able to enter new entries into a product inventory.

- PHP Configuration

Next, they cover some of the basics of tweaking PHP for optimal performance. This all revolves around the php.ini file. They give several recommendations for settings to change, such as: register_globals = off, display_errors = off, log_errors = on, magic_quotes = off, asp_tags = off, and short_open_tag = off. They gave a compelling reason why to leave off short_open_tag, because instead being "< ?php", it is shortened to "< ?". This would cause a parsing error, because XML is written "< ?xml" but would be treated as PHP because it begins with "< ?" as well. If you plan on doing any AJAX, this would create major problems. Keen insights such as this are sprinkled throughout this chapter.

- Apache Tricks

This chapter offered a slew of helpful pointers on Apache Server, including sixteen pages on mod_rewrite alone, the Apache module that allows for more readable clean URL's, instead of messy addresses. Consider the following two examples, both of which lead to the same page (this very book review):

* godbit.com/article/professional-lamp-review
* godbit.com/index.php?id=110

As you can see, while the first might be a bit more lengthy, it contains more memorable information, such as the fact this is an article, and it is a book review of Professional LAMP. This goes a long way in making things more human friendly, and helps search engines index your site more accurately.

Another topic covered is that of mod_deflate, a compression method used in conserving bandwidth. This will cause Apache to send along text such as HTML and CSS with white-space and line-breaks compressed in gzip format, which most browsers are able to interpret and then convert back into a plain text, uncompressed equivalent. The book gives the example of sending a Zip file in an email, rather than several separate attachments. There are also security tips, such as authenticating MySQL users or using SSL when uploading files.

- Site Security

This leads me into the next chapter, which is all about security. Inevitably, with the ungoverned way the Internet operates, you will have malicious people trying to mess with your website. Basically, if you want something secure, don't hook it up to the `net. That being said, there are significant precautions you can take in order to minimize the likelihood that your site will be compromised either intentionally or accidentally.

They explain how to control authentication with both Apache and then adding another layer of PHP checks, such as form validation or register_globals protection. Plus, there is a section on protecting yourself from SQL injection attacks. This nastiness works by using an input, such as comment form or discussion forum, to do things like drop tables or granting user priviledges. Suffice it to say, that can cripple a database driven site, such as this one.

- PEAR and PECL

It has been said that good programmers borrow, but great programmers steal. While I do not advocate ripping people off, the premise of this quote is that if it's been done before, you'd be wasting your time to re-invent the wheel. PEAR - PHP Extension and Repository, and PECL - PHP Extension Community Library are two big components of what make PHP so great. You could think of it as standing on the shoulders of giants, continuing to build where they left off. Basically, each of these is a big pool of submitted extensions that improve PHP's functionality. You could think of it like installing a plugin for the language.

There are far too many extensions to do justice in this review, but one of the ones mentioned in the book was the Date class. With this package installed, you can reference and modify the date with methods like these: addSeconds, getDayName, getMonth, getNextDay, getQuarterOfYear, isLeapYear, etc. As you can tell, each of those is more human readable than: echo date("Y");.

- Code Efficiency

This was a great chapter on balancing code efficiency with real time efficiency. In other words, you don't want to kill yourself over a few milliseconds of loading time, if it is going to take several hours of real development work, especially if that time could be spent better elsewhere. They gave an example of a server computer running software slowly. The first reaction might be to buy new software, resulting in days of lost productivity due to necessary data backup, operating system and program upgrades. In their example though, all that was needed was more system RAM, requiring only a few minutes of down-time.

They take this same principle and apply it to coding methods, benchmarking a few ways of writing mathematical computations, namely a<<3 versus a*8 to multiply a variable integer by 8. If that looks like Greek to you, don't worry because it's explained in this chapter. Essentially, it's an argument of binary notation versus long-hand yet human readable code. They even go so far as to benchmark single quoted (') vs. double quoted (") strings. After an extensive series of tests, and rendering two very complex 3D graphs, it appears that single quoted is in fact faster, though many things can affect the outcome.

Aside from the theoretical arguments, they also help address various server configurations in order to find bottle-necks. An example of this would be too little RAM on your server, or too fast of a server in comparison with too slow of a connection. A good way to think of it is the adage "The box, or the band?" If it's the box, then you can make hardware tweaks, but if it's the bandwidth causing the problem, then you can either up that allotted amount, or tweak various compression schemes and server / client caching methods, to make things go faster. In addition, they of course show you how to write leaner, meaner PHP code, to save on both processor cycles and download time.

- PHP Extensions

This chapter touches on the many extensions that are available. Two of the ones I found to be interesting were PDFLib and GD Library. PDFLib does what the name implies, and creates PDF files on the fly via server-side methods, pulling info from a database. They give an example of how to create a r?sum? maker that outputs PDF versions for download. GD Library handles images on the server-side, allowing you to do things like rotate, resize, and even add watermark overlays or text descriptions with varying opacity directly into the image. This can be seen on sites like iStockPhoto, which have a branded stamp across preview images, encouraging you to buy the unaltered version.

- AJAX

Oh man, I am sick of talking about AJAX - Asynchronous JavaScript And XML. This book does a very good job of explaining the concepts behind it, but I feel like we hear about it so much nowadays that it is almost pointless to regurgitate it again. If you like, read the reviews I've done on books about AJAX here:

* http://godbit.com/article/ajax-and-php-review
* http://godbit.com/article/foundations-of-ajax-review
* http://godbit.com/article/professional-ajax-review

- Caching Engines

This is a good chapter for people who might be concerned about getting Slashdotted or being on the front page of Digg. Basically, it covers several methods of caching pages on a server, so that when a visitor comes, your MySQL database is not constantly being hit in order to serve up content that has not changed. This can be done in a variety of ways.

One such method involves using Alternative PHP Cache, which stores code from the PHP runtime engine in shared memory, so that it not recompiled each time unnecessarily. Other caching engines that function comparably are eAccelerator and the Zend Optimizer. They also cover JPCache, which is unique in that it does not require being installed as a DSO or built into PHP statically, because it runs off standard include and required statements. There is also one called memcache which requires its own daemon to be running on Linux, and caches database results in RAM to keep SQL from running, freeing up the hard drive. It should also be noted that according to this book, JPCache and memcache can "play well together" on the right server, further increasing response time.

Content Management

In this chapter, they cover installing and configuring a few different CMS's. Most of these I had not yet heard of, for example Exponent CMS. This is an enterprise level system, which I found is table-based and not very standards compliant. Therefore, I am not recommending it to anyone. Another CMS mentioned in this chapter is XOOPS, which suffers from the same sort of poor front-end markup. Basically, this chapter was about antiquated systems with bloated code. Also listed were Mambo and PHP-Nuke, both of which should be avoided. To their credit, the authors did cite Drupal and WordPress, which are more accessible and standards compliant than the aforementioned clunkers.

Summary

With the exception of the last chapter, I found that the whole of this book is one that I will refer back to often as I continue to grow in my usage of the LAMP development environment. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has dabbled in the Linux / Apache or PHP / MySQL combo, but really wants to gain a more complete understanding of how they interact. It will definitely help anyone who wants to write cleaner PHP or provide a more responsive hosting server.

Could be of interest to the right audience...
If you don't know (in which case you wouldn't be reading this in all likelihood), LAMP is an acronym for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP5.It's the open source "software stack" used to do web development.If you have a basic grounding in all those software elements, you might be interested in the Wrox book Professional LAMP - Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP5 Web Development by Jason Gerner, Elizabeth Naramore, Morgan L. Owens, Matt Warden.

Contents: What's New in PHP5?; PHP5 OOP; More Obscure PHP; Advanced MySQL; PHP Configuration; Apache Tricks; Site Security; PEAR and PECL; Code Efficiency; PHP Extensions; AJAX; Caching Engines; Content Management Systems; Language Translation; Alternative Tools; Index

As you can see from the content listing, this is a bit of a grab-bag of topics that may or may not interest you.There does seem to be some contradictory information as to who the target audience might be.Looking at the back of the book, the book is described as being for "intermediate to advanced LAMP professionals".This is backed by their visual flowchart of titles, which shows this as a high-end book for those who already know what they're doing.But in the introduction, there is a description of the book as one "for web developers with some experience who want to take their websites to the next level."This is followed by a list of basic skills that they assume, none of which are the software elements that make up LAMP.While I consider myself the target of the second description, I can tell you that this isn't a book that I could use to learn and understand LAMP.You definitely need to have a firm grasp of PHP in order to gain value from this material, as they go into new and advanced features very quickly.

Having stated the caveats, I will say the book is laid out well and would be beneficial to the right audience.There is a lot of code to use and play with, and the information is well documented.The focus is on PHP5 material, so I think that you'd find the book most valuable if you were a PHP developer looking for tricks and tips using the latest version of the software.The Linux part of LAMP is not covered much at all.It's assumed that you're using Linux to run the "AMP" part of the stack, but that's about as far as it goes.If you're looking for Linux info, you won't get much out of this book.

Recommendation?If you're firmly grounded in LAMP and you're looking for information that goes beyond the basics, you might be interested.If you're just looking to get started, you'll want to look elsewhere... ... Read more

Product Description

Pro PHP Security is one of the first books devoted solely to PHP security. It will serve as your complete guide for taking defensive and proactive security measures within your PHP applications. (And the methods discussed are compatible with PHP versions 3, 4, and 5.)

The knowledge you'll gain from this comprehensive guide will help you prevent attackers from potentially disrupting site operation or destroying data. And you'll learn about various security measures, for example, creating and deploying "captchas," validating e-mail, fending off SQL injection attacks, and preventing cross-site scripting attempts.

Customer Reviews (7)

Securing systems & Securing code
I found Pro PHP Security a very informative book.I received this book around the same time that I began developing online financial software.This book lived up to the name and answered a lot of my questions.

I found the chapter on encryption and hashing very interesting.I knew what each system of protection accomplished but not how.Next the authors proceeded to discuss Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and how certificates are created.It was fun to be able to create my own certificate and keys, and gain a better understanding of how the whole process works.

After covering server security and connection security, the authors moved onto secure programming.The first chapter covers user input validation.This is one area that many programmers, myself included, do not devote much time.If you can sanitize the data you get from the user, you have overcome one of the largest hurdles of securing your code.

After that chapter, each following chapter begins with the presentation of an exploit and how it works, followed by discussions of sites affected by these exploits, and concluding with how to prevent it.SQL injection, cross-site scripting, remote execution and session hijacking are some of the exploits discussed.This section of the book gave me plenty to think about and more than enough to work on implementing.

If anyone is a PHP programmer and deals with any kind of sensitive data, then this book is a must read.The authors attempt to provide all the best practices because one method may not work in a given situation, but they also let you know the disadvantages of each method.As Snyder and Southwell discuss in the first chapter, as developers we cannot eliminate risk but we can do our best to mitigate it.

Good info,not many solutions
Like the title states this book tells you about a lot of security issues you should be aware of, but doesn't go in depth for many solutions. Especially xss which is the only reason i bought the book. For how much the book costs i figured it would include some really good php solutions. I mean the thing is in black and white,what's with the price tag that doesn't tell me anything that i can't find on the web.

Very little about PHP security at all
The book is entitled PHP security. But the actual content covers very little PHP at
all:less than 20 percent. It tries to cover everything from UNIX permission,SSH
and all other security issues, but really doesn't have much to do with PHP. So I
think the title is highly misleading. For someone interested in the general
security issues, it might be a fine book. But not for programmers want to know
the security about PHP.

Unless you're already well-versed in the topic ...
Unless you're already very well-versed in the subject matter, ( sql injection, cross-site scripting, session hijacking, remote execution, sanitizing user data/input, ssh, encryption, ssl, dangers of shared-host scenarios, bulletproofing db installations,user verification, captchas, remote procedure calls ) this material is relatively comprehensive and valuable. Well-organized, well thought out, I won't hesitate to recommend this one.

Finally a good book on PHP security issues
PHP applications written without a concern for security risk cross-site scripting, SQL injection, session hijacking, and a multitude of other potential problems.This book examines how to setup a secure environment including encryption, hashing, SSL and using PHP to connect to SSL servers.The authors also examine how to install and configure OpenSSH and using it with PHP applications.Of course they also deal with the usual concerns of user authentication, permissions, restrictions, validating input, preventing SQL injection, preventing cross-site scripting, preventing remote execution (including PHP code injection and embedding), security for temporary files, and preventing session hijacking.The Pro PHP Security is written specifically for PHP programmers working in the Apache, MySQL, and PHP 5 environment and is highly recommended ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (10)

Poorly wriiten
I bought this book thinking that it could teach me well and I could try to make a nice PHP & MySQL script on my website to manage news.

I was utterly wrong.

I am really a fan of the O'Reilly books, they are pretty well made, except for this one.

There are quite a few errors in the coding where I get a TON of parsing errors.

It would be really nice if they could completely re-write the book and take out using PEAR, It may be a useful tool, but I don't like it that much.

I would suggest not getting this book, but for one of the other O'Reilly books, like "Headfirst PHP and MySQL".

Stay Away
This book is full of errors and I never got any thing to work. Stay away from this book. I suggest the Friend of Ed series.

Outdated and many mistakes
This is definitely below the bar for an O'Reilly book. I am about 1/3 way thru and already have to spend hours searching the Internet for the right steps on phpMyAdmin and Apache2 config on MacBook Pro. I am debating if I should finish the rest of the book, best to avoid this book to begin with.

[update] The second half of the book is a bit better, I would recommend skipping the first few chapters and start at Practical PHP.

Riddled with errors - avoid
This dreadful book is so far below O'Reilly's normal high standard that it's hard to believe anyone at the company saw it before publication. It is riddled from start to finish with typos, technical errors, bad coding practices, contradictions and statements that are just plain wrong. It's quite baffling that O'Reilly would let a book this bad hit the shelves.

What is particularly worrying is that this is the second edition. The first was also full of mistakes (see the reviews on the O'Reilly website) and the publisher seems to have acknowledged this by rushing out this second edition only a year after the first, but the new edition fixes few of the problems of the first while introducing a host of new ones. One of the worst books ever published by O'Reilly. Avoid at all costs.

Not for PHP Beginners
Maybe a genius or someone who already understands PHP basics will benefit from this book. I have made great progress with a number of instructional books, but got stuck in Chapter three of this one. It seems that important terms and concepts are not explained, not explained well, or explained in pages after the terms and concepts are first used.
I'm going to search for another book on PHP & MySQL. ... Read more

Product Description
Are you ready to begin programming with PHP and MySQL? Then get ready to jump right in. You'll get an introduction to programming with a specific focus on programming web servers with the PHP programming language. Much of the original content from the first edition (1931841322) is retained, but you'll also cover updates relating to the upcoming PHP 5.0 release. Following the same format as the popular first edition, this book provides easy-to-follow instruction. You will use the concepts presented in the book to create games using PHP and MySQL. As each concept is put to the test, you'll acquire programming skills that will easily transition to real-world projects. A true beginner's guide, this book enables you to acquire programming skills that you can use in the next language that you tackle. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (19)

For the absolute beginner A+
This is an excellent book for the beginner.It steps you through the functions and has good sample code.I really recommend this book.

It is the best for me
This book is the best. As I read it I clearly understood all I had in my head for my new web site. It is simple and there is a lot of useful examples. Thank you!

If you read it 2 or 3 times you'll get the idea
The authors writing style leaves a lot to be desired. He's hard to understand sometimes. He uses a game to illustrate the concepts of PHP & understanding the game was more difficult than the code. It's not bad - it's just OK. I'd recommend Charles Wyke-Smith "Codin for the Web" for a clear explanation of rudimentary PHP MySQL concepts with real world examples - not stupid games.

Good for PHP basics
My son was looking for an introduction to web development, and I couldn't think of a better place than PHP with which to start.

I found the author's writing style very enjoyable - and was particularly impressed by his choice of example programs. For instance, the chapter on databases introduces concepts using an adventure game!

The only problem I had was the lightweight treatment of Content Management Systems (in particular the discussion of PHP-Nuke), which ended up being much too generic to be of use.

However, that doesn't really detract from the quality of the rest of the book, which is highly recommended.

Outdated and useless.
Unfortunately this book, despite its best efforts, falls flat on its face when it comes to teaching php.I am a beginner to the language and I ordered the book recently to begin teaching myself.The code in the book did not work at all, even when I uploaded the pages stored on the CD rom directly to my site they didn't work properly, which let me know that even though I'm new to the language the errors weren't my fault.The script is incomplete and poorly written, as told to me by professional web site authors I know.It lacks the most important parts of the script to make them work and if you're on your own you won't be able to figure out why it isn't working, unless you find the answer in a forum or something.I recommend this book instead, PHP 6 and MySQL 5 for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide.The code in this book actually works and any errors are insignificant plus have corrections online at the author's site.Don't make the same mistake I did in buying this book.It will just disappoint you and waste your money. ... Read more

Product Description
Want to expand your sales market to a worldwide audience but don't know how? Bestselling author Jason Gilmore shows you how to take the reigns of e-commerce and build your own online store using the popular PHP language and PayPal, the world's most loved online payment processor.

Chapter 1. PayPal Demystified
Offering valuable information for developers of all levels, the book kicks things off with an overview of PayPal's family of payment solutions, introducing Website Payments Standard, Express Checkout, Website Payments Pro, and Subscriptions and Recurring Payments. This chapter concludes with valuable information regarding choosing an appropriate PayPal merchant account type, and an overview of key configuration options you'll want to consider following the creation of your account.

Chapter 2. Integrating PayPal Website Payments Standard
This chapter shows readers how to build an online store in mere minutes using Website Payments Standards. Leveraging PayPal's hosted shopping cart and configuration wizards, you could use this chapter to begin accepting payments by the end of today! This chapter concludes with an introduction to PayPal's Instant Payment Notification service, which allows you to automate tasks such as shipping and customer followup following a successful purchase.

Chapter 3. Creating Your Own Shopping Cart
Take control of the customer's shopping experience by creating your own self-hosted shopping cart. Integrating the cart with PayPal's Express Checkout payment solution, you'll be able to rely on PayPal to handle the intricacies of payment processing, while granting customers the convenience of providing you their shipping address with a click of a button.

Chapter 4. Accepting Credit Cards Using the Direct Payment API
For readers wishing to manage the entire e-commerce operation, this chapter shows you how to use PayPal's Website Payments Pro service to autonomously process credit cards using PayPal's transaction server.

Chapter 5. Creating a Subscription-based Payment Solution
This chapter introduces you to PayPal's Subscriptions and Recurring Billing solution, giving you the power to create subscription-based services which charge customer's accounts according to a predefined schedule!

Chapter 6 . Streamlining Your PayPal Operation
We'll round out the book with numerous key insights into streamlining your PayPal operation. You'll learn how to download sales data and other useful reports from your PayPal account, optimize your shipping procedures by focusing on the proper shipping carrier, packaging options, and labeling, maintain happy customers using low cost support options, and deal with not-so-happy customers using PayPal's customer dispute feature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

souce code missing?
Amazon does not seem to provide the registration code necessary to receive the source code for the book. PHP Classes crucial to following the tutorials are in this supplementary data (especially chapter 3), not in the book. Buyer's would be safer buying directly from
[...]
At the easyphpwebsite store, one can establish a login and the purchase can be associated with both the login and a download page.

other than this unfortunate lack, the book is pretty good -- it fills in what is otherwise missing from the bookshelves of those intermediate developers who are looking for a quick way to understand how to implement a basic shopping cart for clients. So far (up to and including chapter 3), except for a few minor typos that are easily spotted and remedied, the book's code works! ... Read more

Product Description
PHP and MySQL have become a serious and commercially viable system withwhich to develop web applications. With the relase of PHP 5, J2EEdevelopers, in particular, are starting to take a second look at PHP. And whilethere are many books on the makret that describe PHP language syntax, thereare very few that fully describe web application development with PHP andrelated technologies. This book describes the complete web applicationdevelopment lifecycle, from planning the application to designing the userinterface to building in robust security. And since web applications serve theentire world, often neglected globalization issues are treated in detail.Though MySQL is used throughout the examples, Part IV also containsexamples of building applications on top of both Oracle and PostgresSQL, twopopular alternatives to MySQL for use in mission-critical systems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (23)

One Star is too high for this book
I am really wondering who are the people they gave the book 4-5 stars...

This book is full of typo error, bug coding, wrong concepts by the following facts:

1. He propose a fingerprint concept, but actually fingerprint needs to be sent back to the user via other ways. The author makes the reader to assume that he can only md5 the user agent with a seed variable and store that in $_Session varialbe to make every work. Wrong!! Totally wrong, nobody will know your fingerprint if you don't send them back to the visitor, and it is meaningless.

2. The book really piss me off. It looks that the book was written by somebody who don't know PHP ...almost every two pages has a typo error, or even more... a script full of bugs....I read it totally once and take notes in every page, and after my reading, I start to try every code which I think is important, but I am really dispointed that they all are junk codes...and the author gave a lot of wrong concepts...for example, the chapter 5, using prev, next, current to handle array. He said if the next element in the array is (bool)False, the next function will end up. I tried it, and the author is wrong again.

It's really time-wasting in reading this kind of book. Not only waste your money, but also waste your time.

Outstanding Book on PHP and MySQL
This is an outstanding book if you have a background in programming C++ as I do. It is clear, concise and can be used as a reference book.

I used another book to get started and soon tired of the tedious copying and testing code. This book does not spend inordinate amount of time explaining each keystroke (exaggeration) and you can skim the parts you know and spend more time on the subject matter that you need to learn.

I highly recommend it.

Way, way too ambitious for one book.
This book has some real gems in it, like the part about how to prevent hi-jacked sessions and cross scripting attacks. Which is why I gave it two stars.

But this book really needs to be split into 3 or 4 volumes. The author just cannot do justice to the complexity of the topics involved. And his lack of coding examples, typically 4 or 5 brief lines, shows this.

As for his "complete" examples, e.g. of a calendar project, he waxes so obtuse with his OOP coding that, not only does the project not work, good luck in trying to fathom it! (I spent two fruitless days at this task and finally gave up. And I have already written and sold a commercial calendar/scheduler to various companies.)

So, unless you are a programmer at the near genius level and you can extrapolate from coding samples like an Einstein at the chalk board with calculus & and a slide rule, the average programmer out there is going to need something much more basic than this book -- if he or she wants to explore the advanced topics it trys to present.

Great Intermediate level PHP book
This is a fairly long book at 858 pages. It is well worth your time.It's well written and therefore, easy to read.Each section gives a detailed explanation, followed by a well commented code example. The index is extensive so it will serve as a good PHP and MySQL reference.The books layout also makes for easy reading.Each chapter, 33 in all, is just long enough to be read in a day, and covers its topic extensively.

I would call this an intermediate level PHP book. It goes beyond your beginning PHP books.Yes, it covers PHP and MySQL basics in the first two sections. And then, it gets into the meat of why your learning PHP and MySQL with major sections on "Planning Web Applications", "Implementing you Web Application, and three "Sample Projects."

What I thought this book added that the basic PHP books do not cover was a constant attention to web security.If security could be a problem in each section of the book, the security issue was explained, and the example showed you how to protect your application from the potential security problem.It also covered areas that are usually glossed over in beginning books, such as cookies & sessions, secure (encryped) layer, user authentication, error handling, form validation, and regular expressions.

You can hardly go wrong with this book, it will give you a solid foundation for whatever you want to do in web development. I highly recommend it.

Good materials to start off with but needs proof reading
As an experience programmer from ASP.Net, I can say that this is a good book for getting into PHP.The book paces pretty well, making sure you get the necessary basics but not bore you with overstuffed material.

The only thing that annoys me, is the amount of typos on the samples and sample codes.If you are a seasoned programmer like me, you will pick them up with no problem before testing them.But for the novice, it could give them extra time debugging.

Still I recommend this book. ... Read more

Product Description
* Now revised to cover features found in PHP4 and PHP5, this new edition shows Web developers step by step how to create dynamic, data-driven Web applications
* Two-color screen shots accompanied by concise callouts demonstrate how to tackle more than 100 key PHP tasks, including using cookies to monitor the activity of Web site visitors, retrieving information from MySQL or other databases, creating images and Web pages on the fly, and processing XML documents
* Shows how to use PHP with Apache Web server, process data forms, access data files, troubleshoot PHP scripts, and migrate scripts to PHP5
* A companion Web site features a fully searchable e-version of the book, plus all code that appears in the text-ready to plug into users' Web pages ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

A Useful Book
This is one of those middle of the road books, that you could hate or love.Except for the minute size of the text in some examples that make it difficult to read in all but good light, I must admit I have found it a very useful book.

It is the book I go to if I want a very quick reminder of how to do something in PHP - for example, I don't have time to read an essay on MySQL and how it should work, with this book you will get a single line of code with its complementary output. It then goes on to build on that in a step by step fashion.

Well done and worth purchasing...don't forget to also buy a pair of spectacles (for the small print)as well!

Unreadable
If you plan on reading this on Kindle... forget it.All the code examples are unreadable. They are included as blurry pictures, and the words are not readable.I wasted $15.You don't need to.If you want this book, buy the paperback version.

There are better choices
IMO, the format of this edition is not suitable for this language.Most people learning PHP don't need instructions how to type characters, they are not retarded.
I found the same book format quite suitable for HTML and CSS, for example, or anything that has to do with visual design.But not for a programming language.

Great material.
I highly recommend this book to anyone getting started in scripting or wanting to go futher with thier understanding of PHP. The book is layed out in a visual format so most people will have little if any trouble understanding what they are coding. You get to see the script, how it works and then what the outcome should be. If you are looking into scripting in PHP get this book! Also check out the other books in the visual blueprint series. I have enjoyed each and everyone and learned more than if I would have stubbled along seeking this information on the Internet.

If you're not familiar with programming already, steer clear.
Despite the fact that this book is marketed as an easy, fun "visual learning" tool, the truth of the matter is that if you're a beginning programmer or even someone who just knows their HTML and CSS and was wondering what all this server side scripting was about, you should give this book a wide berth.

As a student and a web developer, I have often been thrown at one programming language or another and been expected to hit the ground running. The result is that while I know how to use certain languages, the why or how is often fuzzy for me. Thus, I was hoping PHP 5 would clarify for me just what it is php is doing with that mysterious Apache.

Unfortunately, the author(s) simply thrust you into installing Apache and PHP, then telling you that you can use echo statements to insert data into the output stream, something like so:

$time = 'Wednesday';
echo 'It is $time.'

That's great, but...
a) What do echo statements actually DO?
b) What is the output stream?
c) So if I want to display the value of a variable, I just stick the name into the string argument of an echo statement?
d) IS that a string I'm supplying to the echo statement?
e) I'm assuming this means I need to escape any $ characters in case php decides whatever comes after it is a variable name?
f) What happens if it doesn't find any variable named $time?

All this from one innocuous little screenshot. This is fine for people who already know what they're doing, but if you're not prepared to puzzle out the answers to these questions and more, or if you have no idea what those questions even mean, I'd suggest waiting for Head First's take on PHP, as the Head First series is much, much more friendly to beginners:

Head First PHP & MySQL ... Read more

Product Description
Maybe you’re a great programmer or IT professional, but marketing isn’t your thing. Or perhaps you’re a tech-savvy search engine marketer who wants a peek under the hood of a search engine optimized web site. Search engine marketing is a field where technology and marketing are both critical and interdependent, because small changes in the implementation of a web site can make you or break you in search engine rankings. Furthermore, the fusion of technology and marketing know-how can create web site features that attract more visitors.

The mission of this book is to help web developers create web sites that rank well with the major search engines, and to teach search engine marketers how to use technology to their advantage. We assert that neither marketing nor IT can exist in a vacuum, and it is essential that they not see themselves as opposing forces in an organization. They must work together. This book aims to educate both sides in that regard. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (19)

The best book I've seen on the subject.
I've read a number of other resources on the subject of SEO, and this one is definitely the best I've encountered.

No one aspect of SEO is particularly technically complicated, its more just a matter of being aware of all the areas in which you can help (or more likely, not hurt) yourself. This book does a very thorough job of covering all of these areas, and is clear and concise when it comes to describing specific tactics and the underlying mechanisms that make them effective.

Also, as mentioned by another reviewer, this book can be a valuable resource to a non-programmer because of how clearly it explains all of the tactics it covers and how involved the case studies in it are.

Get Your Playground Up and Running
Given the relative advanced topic of this book, I was surprised to find a section on how to get your "playground" up and running. They devote 4 pages to getting XAMPP up and running. However, once you are beyond that, the good stuff starts to unfold.

Amazing book
This book was perfect. I came from no knowlage of seo to fully understanding it. I bought this and Search Engine Optimization an hour a day together, and as good as the other book was, this one blew it away. I had read this one first, and it seemed like everything was just an echo reading the other book, but this one has even more because it shows you the programming aspect.

Excellent book for developers
When I first started making web sites, I thought that a good title, a few META tags, and some relevant content would achieve a high ranking on a search engine.That era is long gone and has been replaced with buzzwords like PageRank and other arcane algorithms.

This book has been extremely helpful at demystifying what a modern webmaster needs to do to obtain the best possible rankings.For me especially, the focus that this be used by an already-competent PHP developer was a strong selling point.It was also laden with many real-world examples that could be immediately used.

The early chapters in the book really go into depth about the common problems in SEO and some simple things to do alongside many of the tools already available to the developer such as Google analytics and mod_rewrite.The latter part of the book delves into the more esoteric techniques that many only apply to a smaller portion of sites, but it is useful nonetheless.

Even for someone with basic familiarity with SEO will find the explanations useful.The chapters on duplicate content and SEO-friendly JavaScript are great examples of helping people unfamiliar with SEO to avoid the most common pitfalls of site design.

Overall, this is an excellent book for anyone who wants the Swiss army knife of SEO techniques.

Complete disappointment - nothing professional here
I've read through this book from first to last page in a hope of finding any valuable information and must say, that most of what the book suggests is of no value to any professional in field. It's begins with some general giberrish about SEO, which is of no real value and can be collected over the web within hour. Then follow some worn out URI rewriting recipes, which I would be ashamed of offering as an solution to any of my clients and call them "SEO". Then ending chapters again are some general giberish, not a dime better that what can be found on web for free.

If the title read "Beginning SEO with PHP", that would be somehow acceptable and the content would be OK, but there is nothing "Professional" in this book.

Firstly, going with PHP4 for your examples in 2007 is a little bit um... "anachronous".

Secondly, eg. the "Custom markup language" the authors introduce in chapter 6 is something, I'd expect from schoolkids but not from somebody who does not hesitate to call his product professional. It's not only terribly half baked and a promissing maintenance nightmare, but it also takes up so much space in the book, that authors could be able to introduce some basic techniques of XML parsing in PHP and explain it's advantages over the ugliness they have provided the reades with. That section among other things gives me clear picture of the "professionality" of the book.

Chapter 7 + 8 - again using PHP4 object model - c'mon, we are in 2007...

Let's say that CH3..CH5 are "OK", the rest is something, that in my opinion does only fills space in the book and readers would be better off searching the approprite information on the internet, where the book points you anyway in the end.

After reading "Professional SEO in PHP", I've for good understood what Joel Spolsky ment when he claimed that you can never learn a technology from a book in red cover with mughshots, however professional it claim to be, because there's no overall intelligence behind it, chapters repeat things and left things out, and in rush to get the book to the market, editing appears to be non-existent. ... Read more

Product Description
The Internet is bigger and better than what a mere browser allows. Webbots, Spiders, and Screen Scrapers is for programmers and businesspeople who want to take full advantage of the vast resources available on the Web. There's no reason to let browsers limit your online experience--especially when you can easily automate online tasks to suit your individual needs.

Learn how to write webbots and spiders that do all this and more:

Product Description
This guide helps PHP developers take advantage of the stability and features of design patterns

Design patterns are the cornerstones of building solid, stable, flexible, and feature-rich Web applications. This guide enables PHP developers to take advantage of everything they offer.

If you are unfamiliar with design patterns, this book explains what you need to know. Both novice and veteran PHP developers will benefit from the alphabetical list of design patterns and code examples showing how to implement each pattern in PHP. Step-by-step instructions for a sample contact management system will help you understand real-world applications for the information.

• Gets PHP developers who have not used design patterns up to speed on the technology
• Shows programmers who are familiar with design patterns in other languages how to apply the techniques to PHP
• Includes examples of ordinary code used in everyday development and how to modify it for one of the design patterns discussed
• Provides an alphabetical list of common design patterns, with code examples showing how each can be implemented in PHP
• Uses a case study of a contact management system to analyze and demonstrate the step-by-step process of applying design patterns

With its single focus on applying design patterns to PHP development, PHP Design Patterns helps both new and veteran PHP programmers improve their applications and their career prospects. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Wish I had it when I started my latest project
I am not even half way through this book (am still working through the rest of the Patterns reference, haven't looked at the last three chapters) and am already kicking myself for not discovering this book sooner. My project that I am currently working on would have benefited greatly from some of the patterns in this book.

Every pattern has a simple, real life example of a problem and a simple solution. One of the things you have to realize about this book is that the patterns are not plug-and-play. You can't just insert the patterns into your project without modifying them; they have to be tailored to fit your project. Luckily, the pattern examples are clear enough that that shouldn't be a problem in most circumstances. I would recommend this book if you want to better organize your code and improve its scalability.

Also, I initially did not realize that there were a few chapters at the end of the book regarding implementing the patterns. The author talks about planning a project using Patterns, and then in another chapter builds the project. I will probably read over these chapters, as I would assume they are good examples of the patterns in action. When I originally wrote this review, I gave the product 5 stars BEFORE I realized these final chapters existed. I was pleasantly surprised by just the reference material. These final chapters are an added bonus in my book.

few examples and not all patterns treated
First, sorry for mistakes, I'm from Italy so I will be very concise.
The problems of this book are:
- examples for each pattern: only one example and very very very ... too simple! examples in design pattern are very important - for me - , I think that a usefull book on patterns should present four or five examples for each pattern, at least.

- not all patterns are treated! What about "Chain of Responsability"? And "Abstract Factory"? And "Bridge"? And "composite" ? And "Flyweight"? This book has only 238 page, and you treat about pattern from 26 to 125 ... I think this is not enought.

Great Book! Easy to understand. Just what I needed...
This book was just what I needed to get a grasp on the design patterns and learn how to use them correctly. The examples are small enough to wrap my head around but big enough to get the idea of what is going on. I would recomend this to anyone that is a php programmer working wiht objects.

I have had the book for only 2 days and I already used the facade and the decorator pattern in a project. Just after I got the code installed on the website the owner changed his mind and requested some code changes. I found that it was much easier to manage his changes since I used the design patterns shown in this book. Actually it was almost a pleasure to make the changes to the code since it was set up properly in the first place.

... Read more

Product Description

Ajaxbreathes new life into web applications by transparently communicating and manipulating data in conjunction with a server-based technology. Of all the server-based technologies capable of working in conjunction with Ajax, perhaps none are more suitable than PHP, the world's most popular scripting language.

Beginning Ajax with PHP: From Novice to Professional is the first book to introduce how these two popular technologies can work together to create next-generation applications. Author Lee Babin covers what you commonly encounter in daily web application development tasks, and shows you how to build PHP/AJAX-enabled solutions for forms validation, file upload monitoring, database-driven information display and manipulation, web services, Google Maps integration, and more. Youll learn how to

• Take advantage of PHP and advanced JavaScript capabilities to create next-generation, highly responsive Web applications.
• Enhance commonplace application tasks such as forms validation and tabular data display.
• Manage cross-browser issues, ensuring your applications run on all major Web browsers.
• Take advantage of the Google Maps API and add spatial mapping features to your website.

Youll also be introduced to other key topics like conquering cross-platform issues, countering potential security holes, and testing and debugging JavaScript with efficiency. All examples are based on real-world scenarios, so youll be able to apply what you learn to your own development situations.

Customer Reviews (13)

This book was outdated when I bought it 3 years ago.
The code examples should be used more for reference, and not as literal examples. If I wrote my code the way it's represented in this book I would get fired.

A NOT Good Introduction to AJAX for the PHP Programmer
I wrote this review in italian. I'll try to translate it in english soon.

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Gli esempi, gente! Gli esempi sono un aspetto chiave dei libri, perché è lì che il lettore impara a mettere in pratica i concetti appresi. Affinché siano davvero utili, gli esempi devono essere *perfetti*.

Alcuni utenti che hanno recensito questo libro hanno lamentato la poca attenzione al codice, in cui sono stati lasciati degli errori. Ma al di là di questo c'è di peggio.

Negli esempi l'output restituito da PHP spesso - o dovrei dire "sempre"? - contiene codice HTML con tanto di DIV e direttive CSS e sul lato client questo output viene direttamente assegnato alla proprietà innerHTML di un certo DIV.

Esempi di questo genere sono assolutamente da evitare, perché il povero lettore li prenderà per best-practices e continuerà a seguire questo modo sbagliato di scrivere codice.

L'output del codice PHP deve contenere DATI. Solo DATI. Non certo formattazione HTML, DIV o direttive CSS. L'output del codice PHP può essere un documento XML che contiene i dati richiesti (ad esempio un elenco di prodotti che soddisfano i criteri di ricerca impostati dall'utente); quando il documento verrà caricato completamente, una funzione JS lo analizzerà e i dati in esso contenuti verranno visualizzati nella pagina corrente.

Serve in altre parole una separazione netta tra i dati che si richiedono al server (elenco di prodotti) ed il modo in cui una determinata pagina dovrà presentarli all'utente (codice HTML e CSS). Se si mischiano queste due cose, lo script php che genera l'html sarà specifico per quella pagina e dovremmo scriverne un altro se vogliamo che gli stessi dati appaiano in una pagina differente (che può richiedere, ad esempio, una diversa formattazione dell'output). Non solo: in questo modo vincoliamo enormemente in codice PHP all'aspetto grafico della pagina. Se cambiamo nome ad una classe CSS o se ridefiniamo il modo in cui l'output deve essere presentato, dobbiamo mettere mano anche al codice PHP.

E' un'assurdità e non capisco come mai la si trovi stampata (più volte!!!!) in un libro.

Good starter
Good starter book, but there are plenty of tools and frameworks online (e.g. jQuery) that should be investigated and would probably serve the reader better than this book.

Messy!
I honestly regret buying this book.

The code is extremely messy and incomplete, breaking in and out of PHP to use HTML, applying in line styles instead of using stylesheets, and there simply is NOT enough documentation.

The messy code alone makes me uneasy about the credibility of this author. Is he really explaining the best practices for Ajax, or just doing "what works"? It seems to be the latter, and I am not interested in starting off the wrong way! To make matters worse, in most of the examples, he does not break down the code to explain why he did things the way he did. Instead, he tells you WHAT he did.

If you are looking for samples of code that "just work" but are not necessarily the proper syntax, he has a few examples of nice things you can incorporate in your next web application. If you want an understanding of how they work, and why certain methods are chosen over others, avoid this book at all costs.

I want my money back.

Beginning Ajax with PHP: From Novice to Professional
This book is a waste of money. It is called beginning Ajax and PHP, but the codes are barely (if any at all) explained. Most critical parts of the codes explanation are not even paid attention to or is totally ignored, and some of the codes don't even work.

This book act as repository of bunch of codes, and that's all it is. My recommendation: save your money and just download the code from the site. You wouldn't miss anything at all, except save your money. There is nothing more than what you get from code download in this book.

It is shame, because with little efforts in explanation and care to the accuracy of the code, this book could have been a decent book.

Just download the code and study it yourself, you will do that anyway even if you buy the book.

I usually like Apress series of "From Novice to Professional"books, but this one is sure a waste of money and time.
... Read more