Apache, MySQL, and PHP Web Development All-in-One Desk Reference for (Paperback)

~ Jeff Cogswell (Author) "You need to secure the Linux system before attaching it to the network..." (more)
Key Phrases: mysgl utility, mysql utility, php file, Apache Web, The Matrix, Internet Explorer (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

* Covers the entire open source Web platform known as LAMP, which includes Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP, the basis for many dynamic data-driven Web sites
* Seven convenient minibooks provide easy reference on open source and team development, working with Linux and Apache, automating Web sites with Perl, developing front-end applications with Tcl/TK, creating dynamic Web pages with PHP, accessing Web databases with MySQL, and processing Web files with regular expressions
* Includes valuable, hard-to-find coverage of collaboration, file sharing, and version control with CVS
* PHP is running on over nine million sites, with an average increase of 6.5 percent monthly over the past two years; Apache Web servers handle seventy percent of Web content

From the Back Cover

7 books in 1– your key to successful LAMP Web development!

Your one-stop guide to developing Web sites with Linux®, Apache, MySQL, and PHP

Here’s what you need to open up the wonderful world of open source Web development! Convenient minibooks get you going on every phase of the process and cover each LAMP tool, so it’s easy to find what you need. There’s even a minibook to make those pesky regular expressions make sense. Let the light shine in!

The Dummies Way

• Coverage of the essentials and beyond
• Explanations in plain English
• "Get in, get out" information
• Thumbtabs and other navigation aids
• Tear-out cheat sheet
• A dash of humor and fun

Discover how to:

• Configure and secure systems for Apache
• Automate Web sites with Perl
• Create Tcl/Tk programs and design GUIs
• Enhance Web sites with PHP
• Access SQL from PHP
• Understand regular Expressions

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Product Details

• Paperback: 760 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies (December 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764549693
• ISBN-13: 978-0764549694
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #934,744 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful but a book that can make you frustrated, July 25, 2005

By	Rukie Tarrie - See all my reviews

I consider myself as pretty much a patient problem solver when I actually encounter problems. But as I begin to use this book as a reference book to build my first website based on MySQL, PHP, and many other languages, I found myself getting seriously annoyed at the fact that this book offered me.

That is not meant to say this book is a horrible book. First of all, as this book is published as "For Dummies series", the author "is obliged" to write as you do not much about anything, though the author himself most likely did not incline toward the obligation. And, as it is written on book covers, this book truly covers the seven topics in one, and each of the topics is explained in detail and in plain language to make you easy to understand.

But despite of these positive sides, it is unfortunate that this book seriously needs revision. To remind you, this book is a book targetting toward beginners. At the same time, however, this book is also a book targetting toward those who are actually intending to use PHP and other applications mentioned here to build a website. But before I mention what are the problems with the book, I want to let you know something about PHP. Those who already know or do not bother to know about it, just skip over to 2nd paragraph following this.

For those who do not know, PHP is a language that can easily frustrate you if you make a single, minimal mistake such as: replacing a single quote as a double quote, absence/addition of a a blank line or a space, etc. To make things worse, when you run the PHP page with errors in web, it will give you errors that is not only unpleasant but almost entirely useless. I first used Notepad to write/edit the scripts, but lated I had to rely on Dreamweaver to make edits less frustrating -- but with no significant improvement. And for those who do not have these expensive IDE softwares, you will probably spend hours to see what have done wrong in your script.

Now, continuing with the problem with the book... The author makes a serious mistake by leaving incorrectly written scripts on several portions of his book. For example, these is this PHP script written on Chapter VI, Chapter 7, "Creating a Username System for Your Website", that shows you entire scripts for useraccess.php file. The file itself is about 151 lines wrong(I say "about" because the script itself really depends on how you design the script), and there are 7 other files, either html or php, that works in conjunction with this file. By running the script, I got an error message that is basically useless. I ran the program in numbers of times more again, and I later found that the problem was actually in the book: there were 19 "{" sign but only 18 "}" sign in the script! I still ran in a couple more problems again after fixing the mistake. In any case, the book makes several mistakes that can guarantee you to get frustrated unless you are already a programming gru.

In addition, while the author goes each portion pretty extensively, he somehow seems to assume that you read about previous parts of Books before you goes to next Book. What I mean by that is, for example, when he mentions about objects in PHP, he actually wants you to go back and read the parts in Perl to make you understand it. I do not think that is not really a good approach for beginners who will read this book because some users simply do not want to spend extra time to read over another books mentioning about Perl or Apache when they just wants to learn PHP. And often, I strongly felt that there needs to be more explanations regarding each issue, and I visited his website to see whether there is maybe a forum or a tutorial set up regarding the book. What I only found from his websites is articles regarding another computer language C, download search that is basically useless for me, and, oh, some Google and other affiliate ads to make himself some money. Nice...

So, to conclude, I cannot really say that this book is a great book for beginners. Maybe, you will find that this book is not even an okay book, or maybe you will. However, what I suggest to you is that, if you buy this book from a bookstore, be sure to have a mind to learn through trials-and-errors with frustration rather than just using scripts written from the book.