The PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks (Paperback)

by Ben Balbo (Author), Harry Fuecks (Author), Davey Shafik (Author), Ligaya Turmelle (Author), Matthew O'Phinney (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks, 2nd Edition is a collection of powerful PHP 5 solutions to the most common programming problems.

Featuring best-practice code and a commonsense approach to development, this book includes coverage of:

Manage errors gracefully.

Build functional forms, tables, and SEO-friendly URLs.

Reduce load time with client- and server-side caching.

Produce and utilize web services with XML.

Secure your site using access control systems.

Easily work with files, emails, and images.

And much more

The question and answer format will allow you to to quickly find and reference any of the 101 solutions, saving you hours of Internet research or painful trial & error. All solutions are fully explained and the ready-to-use code is available for download.

From the Publisher

"A comprehensive collection of ready-to-use PHP solutions!"

• Over 100 easy-to understand PHP tips, tricks and hacks.
• Save hours of time with "copy and paste" ready code.
• All solutions are fully explained by five PHP gurus.
• Learn the very latest object oriented PHP techniques.
• And so much more...

Each chapter of this book is laid out in a problem-solution format. We'll start with a common PHP problem that you may face, and then provide a concise solution to that problem. In some cases, when the topic warrants it, we'll give you a brief discussion of the solution to provide context.

The chapters are grouped to cover the major areas of PHP. Inside, you'll find solutions to the most common challenges that PHP developers face.

What Slashdot.org Says

"The chapters on error handling and access control are alone worth the price of the book"

About the Author
Ben Balbo was born in Germany, grew up in the UK, lives in Melbourne, and likes Guinness. While he isn't drinking Guinness (which is most of the time in Melbourne, as it just doesn't taste the same), he earns a living as a PHP developer and trainer, security consultant, and Open Source developer. He has been known to talk in public about web development-related topics, which comes as part of the package of being on the committees of both the Melbourne PHP User Group and Open Source Developers' Club. Although he wouldn't admit this, he participates at this level only in order to go to restaurants or pubs after the meetings.

Harry Fuecks is a technical writer, programmer, and system engineer. He has worked in corporate IT since 1994, having completed a Bachelor's degree in Physics. He first came across PHP in 1999, while putting together a small Intranet. Today, he's the lead developer of a corporate Extranet, where PHP plays an important role in delivering a unified platform for numerous back office systems.

Davey Shafik is a full time PHP Developer with many year of experience in PHP and related technologies. An avid magazine writer and book author, Davey keeps his mind sharp by trying to tackle problems from a unique perspective.

Ligaya Turmelle is a full-time goddess, occasional PHP programmer, and obsessive world traveler. Actively involved with the PHP community as a founding Principal of phpwomen.org, administrator at codewalkers.com, roving reporter for the Developer Zone on Zend.com, and PHP blogger and long-time busybody of #phpc on freenode, she hopes to one day actually meet the people she talks to. When not sitting at her computer staring at the screen, Ligaya can usually be found either playing golf, scuba diving, snorkeling, kayaking, hiking, or just playing with the dogs outside. Ligaya Turmelle is a Zend Certified Engineer.

Matthew Weier O'Phinney is a full-time father of two and spends his free time developing in PHP. He is a PEAR developer, core contributor to Zend Framework, and all-around PHP 5 proponent-though PHP 6 cannot come soon enough for him.

Product Details

• Paperback: 542 pages
• Publisher: SitePoint; 2 edition (October 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0975841998
• ISBN-13: 978-0975841990
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #380,333 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A PHP Book that's different (and better) than the rest, January 22, 2008

By	Adam Gough (Australia) - See all my reviews

I really wasn't sure what to expect with the book, my shelves are already packed with a stack of good PHP books that I've read through once, got a few good gems of info from, put on the shelf, and never touch again.

It was the title that got me first interested in this book, sort of like the greatest hits of PHP which, in theory, is a book that I expected to get a little more use from.

I'm happy to say that this book delivered on it's promise and them some.

The difference between this book and say some of the other more tutorial style PHP books I own is that it doesn't follow the one size fits all approach. It actually explains solutions to problems that your able to adapt you your own world. I downloaded the code from the books website which made my life even easier.

It's organized into stack of little mini tutorials covering most of the challenges you'll face if you're programming with PHP. I didn't read this from cover-to-cover but more jumped straight to some of the specific sections that I was keen to learn about. The layout and design of this book enables you to jump around from section to section easily.

I'm now finding myself going back to this book time and time again as new problems crop up, just today I had to solve a caching issue and violia a nice little example of exactly what I needed was there in chapter 11. It saved me a stack of time so I thought I'd use it to write this review.

It's also worth noting that chapter 1 contains a nicely written introduction to object-oriented PHP and is worth a read if your just starting with PHP and everyone should read chapter 13. Even though I've been programming in PHP for a while now this chapter opened my eyes to why I experience some of the frustrations I do... I'd probably be happy with paying the cover price just for that chapter alone.

It's my first sitepoint book and I've got to say I'm extremely happy. They seem to do things a little different than you're old schoolers and I've got to say the approach is refreshing. I'd have no problem with recommending this to PHP developers at any level.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Up to date and useful reference book., January 22, 2008

By	Chris Smith (Canada) - See all my reviews

While I wouldn't read this book cover-to-cover, it makes a very handy and current reference title for any intermediate PHP programmer.

100 Solutions, neatly divided into 13 chapters, make it very quick to find what I was looking for. The downloadable code from the publishers website also helped a great deal and saved me some time.

I found the security checklist at the back of the book particularly useful and helped me pinpoint and solve some potential vulnerbilities. Chapter 13 on best practices was also a clear standout in my mind, as it covers PHP coding best practices and helped me improve how I work.

5 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Terrible binding, can't read the book, December 2, 2007

By	Cynthia Ward - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I ordered this from the publisher and it literally fell apart as I started reading it. I'm going to have to 3-hole punch it and find a thick binder for the over 500 pages! I thought it might be the publisher (Sitepoint), but I just read that a Peachpit book (the new Scott Kelby book) is having the same problems. I wonder if they use the same binder? I can't actually review the book, as it's unreadable in the present condition. I have read other Sitepoint books though, and find them quite good, particularly the Yank book. This is the first one to fall apart.