Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 10 Minutes [Paperback]

Chris Newman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0672327627 | ISBN-13: 978-0672327629

Are you one of those people who think there isn't anything substantial that you can do in only 10 minutes? Think again. Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 10 Minutes is a no-fluff, just-the-answers guide to building dynamic websites using PHP. Broken into 10 minute lessons, you will gain a rapid working knowledge of PHP 5 and be able to immediately put that knowledge to use in practical applications. Who ever would have thought there was so much you could do in just 10 minutes!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 10 MinutesAbout the Author

Chris Newman is a consultant programmer specializing in the development of custom web-based database applications to a loyal international client base.

A graduate of Keele University, Chris lives in Stoke-on-Trent, England, where he runs Lightwood Consultancy Ltd., the company he founded in 1999 to further his interest in Internet technology. Lightwood operates web hosting services under the DataSnake brand and is proud to be one of the first hosting companies to offer and support SQLite in addition to PHP as a standard feature on all accounts.

More information on Lightwood Consultancy Ltd. can be found at http://www.lightwood.net, and Chris can be contacted at [e-mail].

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction: Welcome to PHP

This book is about PHP, one of the most popular web scripting languages around. It is a book for busy people. Each lesson takes just 10 minutes to work through, so if you have wanted to learn PHP for a while but have never really had the chance, don't put it off any longer!

Who This Book Is For

This book is aimed at those who want to learn PHP, even if they don't have any previous programming or scripting experience. You can even use this book to learn PHP as a first programming language if you do not have any previous experience.

If you have some previous programming experience but have not written for the web before, you can use this book to learn about the PHP language and how to apply programming techniques to the web environment.

This book does not teach you HTML. Although knowledge of HTML is not a prerequisite, having published web pages in the past will be an advantage—even if you do not usually hand-code HTML.

How This Book Is Organized

This book is organized into five parts.

Part I: PHP Foundations

The lessons in Part I introduce the basic building blocks of the PHP language:

• Lesson 1: Getting to Know PHP. This chapter introduces you to what PHP is all about and gives some simple examples to show how PHP is used inside a web page.

• Lesson 2: Variables. This chapter explains how you assign values to variables and demonstrates some simple expressions.

• Lesson 3: Flow Control. This chapter examines the conditional and looping constructs that allow you to control the flow of a PHP script.

• Lesson 4: Functions. This chapter explains how you can modularize and reuse a frequently used section of code as a function.

Part II: Working with Data

The lessons in Part II examine in more detail the different types of data that can be manipulated by PHP:

• Lesson 5: Working with Numbers. This chapter gives more detailed examples of the numeric manipulation you can perform in PHP.

• Lesson 6: Working with Strings. This chapter examines the powerful set of string functions that PHP provides.

• Lesson 7: Working with Arrays. This chapter explains how arrays work and examines the PHP functions that can manipulate this powerful data type.

• Lesson 8: Regular Expressions. This chapter shows how to perform complex string manipulation by using powerful regular expressions.

• Lesson 9: Working with Dates and Times. This chapter examines how to use date and time values in a PHP script.

• Lesson 10: Using Classes. This chapter introduces you to object-oriented PHP and examines how you define and access a class in a script.

Part III: The Web Environment

The lessons in Part III deal with using PHP specifically in the web environment:

• Lesson 11: Processing HTML Forms. This chapter shows how you use PHP to process user-submitted input from an HTML form.

• Lesson 12: Generating Dynamic HTML. This chapter examines some techniques for creating HTML components on-the-fly from PHP.

• Lesson 13: Form Validation. This chapter examines some techniques for validating user-submitted input from an HTML form.

• Lesson 14: Cookies and Sessions. This chapter shows how to pass data between pages by using PHP sessions and how to send cookies to a user's browser.

• Lesson 15: User Authentication. This chapter examines some techniques for validating user-submitted input from an HTML form.

• Lesson 16: Communicating with the Web Server. This chapter looks at ways in which PHP can interact with a web server.

Part IV: Using Other Services from PHP

Part IV looks at how PHP can communicate with external programs and services:

• Lesson 17: Filesystem Access. This chapter examines the PHP functions that enable you to access the filesystem.

• Lesson 18: Host Program Execution. This chapter examines the PHP functions that enable you to execute programs on the host system.

• Lesson 19: Using a MySQL Database. This chapter shows how to use a MySQL database for data storage and retrieval from PHP.

• Lesson 20: Database Abstraction. This chapter explains how you can access a database through an abstraction layer to make scripts more portable.

• Lesson 21: Running PHP on the Command Line. This chapter shows how you can use PHP as a powerful shell scripting language.

• Lesson 22: Error Handling and Debugging. This chapter discusses some techniques for finding and fixing bugs in scripts.

Part V: Configuring and Extending PHP

The final part of the book deals with PHP administration:

• Lesson 23: PHP Configuration. This chapter explains some of the popular configuration options that can be set at runtime to change the behavior of PHP.

• Lesson 24: PHP Security. This chapter discusses security issues in PHP scripts and shows how you can use Safe Mode on a shared web server.

• Lesson 25: Using PEAR. This chapter introduces the freely available classes that are available in the PHP Extension and Application Repository.

Versions of Software Covered

At the time of writing, the current version of PHP is PHP 5.0.3. Unless otherwise stated, all code examples in this book will work with PHP 4.1.0 and higher.

Conventions Used in This Book

This book uses different typefaces to differentiate between code and regular English, and also to help you identify important concepts.

Text that you type and text that should appear on your screen is presented in monospace type.

It will look like this to mimic the way text looks on your screen.

Placeholders for variables and expressions appear in monospace italic font. You should replace the placeholder with the specific value it represents.

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Note

A Note presents interesting pieces of information related to the surroundingdiscussion.

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Tip

A Tip offers advice or teaches an easier way to do something.

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Caution

A Caution advises you about potential problems and helps you steer clear ofdisaster.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Sams (April 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672327627
• ISBN-13: 978-0672327629
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #463,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good starting point for those unfamiliar with the language., November 3, 2006

By 

Phillip Nunemacher (Carson City, NV United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 10 Minutes (Paperback)

I recently found a need to do a little PHP programming on a website. When I went looking for books what I found were any number of two to six hundred page texts. Then I found this little gem. It fitted my purposes perfectly as it explained the basics of PHP with examples for things I was trying to accomplish.

I will say that I that the treatment of classes was too brief and was the major reason that I didn't give five stars. The important things is that it provided a basis for me to experiment with the examples, accomplish what I needed to do, and allowed me to gain enough knowledge in a few short evenings that I'll be able to get another book on the subject without being totally lost from the first page. That is all I can ask from a cheap book.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Made Learning Easy, September 18, 2006

By 

Joel H. Tome "Joel Tome" (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 10 Minutes (Paperback)

This book was written in clear language with small examples of code that are perfect for a beginner to make learning PHP easy. The best thing is that the author chose an excellent set of topics to cover in an introductory book: programming concepts ( arrays, variables, functions, etc. ), web concepts ( forms, connecting to MySQL database, cookies and sessions, etc. ), and a smattering of installation and configuration information ( ... just enough, not boring ). Moreover, I really liked the smaller size of the book so that I could easily hold it while typing up the examples at my keyboard.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great!!!, March 27, 2008

By 

MedIT - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 10 Minutes (Paperback)

I started with a good computer background but limited coding experience and no knowledge of PHP. I got this book. I looked at it for an hour. I started writing a php test site. I worked my way through the rest of the book in four hours. I worked on the site for the next two days. I got the Sam's PHP in 24 hours book. At the end of a week I had my own online photo management / backup / sharing application up and running.

For high yield learning I've never seen anything that can rival this book. It both told me how to do what I wanted, why to do it that way, and what not to do. Simply, this book is a wonderful starting point for someone who is tech savvy and wants to learn by doing.

Advice:
Buy it so it arrives on a Friday before a free weekend, you are going to kill the weekend. Go on and buy the Sam's teach yourself PHP in 24 hours now and save yourself the frustration of waiting for it to ship.

About Sam's
I was so happy with this Sam's book that I got PHP in 24 hours and the MySQL in 10 mins books to help with the same project. MySQL in 10 mins is also a great book. I didn't find it as good as PHP in 10 mins, but it's hard to say if that is a difference in the books of a difference in the two topics. (PHP in 24 is great, as I said earlier.)

Unfortunately those are really my only success stories with Sam's. I got both JavaScript in 24hrs and Ajax in 10 mins from Sam's and neither lived up to the PHP books. They were both much more of a cookbook feeling and less of an introduction to a topic.