The PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks [Paperback]

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

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 2007 | ISBN-10: 0975841998 | ISBN-13: 978-0975841990 | Edition: Second Edition

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"

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

The PHP Anthology takes the most common problems posted by PHP developers in many discussion lists, forums and newsgroups and shows you how to solve them using modern PHP-coding practices. Along with detailed discussion of the key issues involved in solving specific problems, The PHP Anthology promotes development using PHP’s Object Oriented Programming (OOP) features and popular Open Source libraries.

All solutions and code in the books have been reviewed and approved by today’s top PHP experts, including Kevin Yank, author of the best-selling "Build Your Own Database-Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL". In other words, you can be assured that the books will show you how to develop rock solid, secure applications in the most efficient way possible.

The PHP Anthology can serve as a reference book to over 100 common problems, or if you want to read it cover-to-cover, it can serve as tutorial on advanced PHP coding techniques. Either way, it will provide you with unique insight to help you drastically improve your development techniques, cut down on needless lines of code and avoid potential security pitfalls. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 542 pages
• Publisher: SitePoint; Second Edition edition (October 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0975841998
• ISBN-13: 978-0975841990
• Product Dimensions: 1.1 x 7 x 8.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,326,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Very practical -- lots of good examples that will be useful. January 13, 2004

By Chris Smith

Format:Paperback

Having bought a few beginner's books on PHP and written a basic CMS for my Website, I was ready to move to the step. What I didn't want is a reference book or a 800 page theory & fluff book that I would never finish reading -- much less use.

Being a previous customer of this publisher, I got an offer to pre-order the book. Since it sounded like it fit the bill and I got a discount for buying both Volume I & II, I decided to go ahead with it.

Having read through half of the first volume, and skimmed through the second volume, I can definitely say that this title has met my expectations. There's quite a few ideas that I can put to use right away, plus I found quite a few things that I now want to offer to my site visitors that this book will make possible.

Because of the way the book is written, I don't have to read through it front to back. I can flip to specific sections, and in a few pages, learn to accomplish a specific task. This is one PHP book - or I should say books - that gets my thumbs up. It's definitely going to get put to good use over the next few weeks.

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Can PHP be a language for pofessional developers? Yes! April 22, 2004

By H. van Emde Boas

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a great book!
I bought about 10 PHP books to help me with a web project involving MySQL/PHP. I am a professional Java developer, therefore the principles of PHP are not hard to grasp. Still, everything is different in PHP, and before I saw this book I had the impression that the majority of PHP developers are hacking, cutting and pasting examples into procedural code at random.

After getting started using "PHP and MySQL Web Develpment" by Luke Wellling and Laura Thompson (highly recommended) this book brought me to a level that I can now clain to be a professional PHP programmer too.

This book clearly shows that it is possible to develop PHP in an organized way, using proper design, good object-oriented principles and design patterns (in vol.II). Besides that, there are many practical tips about things I found really difficult as Java programmer: magical quotes, .ini file settings, & references, file downloads, paging result tables, etc. etc. The book is clearly written and answers every question from the standpoint of how to do something using good design and how to write code that is maintainable, extensible and reusable.

17 of 18 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

Format:Paperback

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. Read more ›

12 of 12 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

Format:Paperback

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.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Followup April 14, 2004

By Aaron Brazell

Format:Paperback

With so many books on the market instructing users on dummy approaches to just about everything, it is good to see that Sitepoint has raised the bar, once again, in the technical instruction arena. In continuing the legacy established with "Build Your Own Website Using PHP & MySQL" and "HTML Utopia:Designing Without Tables Using CSS", they have taken a
complex and oft misunderstood approach to coding and presented PHP in a dymystified way that is easy to understand, exciting to conceptualize and practical in application. Harry Fuecks brings a great deal of experience and leadership to Sitepoint, giving the users a way to take linear procedural code and turn it into reusable objects for easier coding. These books will sit on my "favorites" shelf within arms reach of my computer for a long time to come. Kudos, Sitepoint, on yet another stellar release.
~Aaron Brazell, Emmense Technologies