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Essential PHP Tools: Modules, Extensions, and Accelerators (Paperback)

~ David Sklar (Author)
Key Phrases: diet cardboard, code caches, ice cream flavors, Accessing Databases, Zend Engine, Guava Mint Bouillon (more...)
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

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Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with Beginning PHP and MySQL: From Novice to Professional, Third Edition by W. J. Gilmore

Essential PHP Tools: Modules, Extensions, and Accelerators + Beginning PHP and MySQL: From Novice to Professional, Third Edition

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Editorial Reviews

Review

From the reviews:

"This book intends to simplify programming tasks through the use … . The intended audience is intermediate-to-advanced, although I believe it is also of great use to the uninitiated. The Introduction provides a solid introduction to the use of PEAR … . The section on databases is required reading for anyone wishing to … . The Smarty chapter is an excellent introduction into templating … . Especially enjoyable is the chapter on PEAR’s Mail_mime … . I particularly enjoyed the level of detail given … ." (Mitchell Pirtle, International PHP Magazine, Issue no. 4, 2004)

Product Description

Apress has been profuse in both its quantity and quality of releases&emdash;and (this book is) surely worth adding to your technical reading budget for skills development. I stayed up clear past my 'bedtime' several nights while implementing the covered modules in my program, unable to pull myself away. From Pear packages to parsing XML files, this book is a huge time-saver to developing your own solutions.</a></p> </blockquote> <p id="quoteAuthor">&#8212; Richard Testani, Apple-Sauce.com</p></div>

<p>This book is an essential guide to some of the best free add-ons to PHP. These add-ons, or tools, provide invaluable functionality for improving your PHP Web applications, including accessing databases, generating robust Web forms, using page templating systems, creating and parsing XML documents, authenticating users, and much more.<p>

In response to the existing shortage of documentation about the tools, Sklar packs this book with details about installing, configuring, and using each tool&emdash;along with plenty of examples tailored to PHP 4 and 5. <p>

<p>Sklar also lays out the details of Auth and HTML_QuickForm&emdash;two hard working PEAR modules&emdash;so you don't have to code your own authentication system or Web form construction set! Also included are chapters on debugging programs, and increasing Web server speed. In short, you will learn to eliminate inefficiencies in PHP, and enhance performance without any code modification.


Product Details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Apress (March 15, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1590592808
  • ISBN-13: 978-1590592809
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #668,746 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

More About the Author

David Sklar
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Average Customer Review
3.6 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Learn to use external PHP libraries effectively, June 12, 2004
David Sklar has written a book on a subject that most other PHP authors have ignored, and which many PHP programmers have failed to consider: how using pre-made, existing libraries effectively can save you hours of writing (and re-writing) PHP code.

There are many external libraries available to PHP, some under the PEAR brand ( http://pear.php.net ) and others by individual authors or companies.

If you would like to automate the creation, processing and validatin of form processing, there's HTML_QuickForm. If you'd like to implement a templating system to separate presentation logic from other programming logic, there's Smarty. If you would like to setup a lightweight, yet completely usable and effective web services platform, there's the PEAR XML-RPC library.

In many of these cases, the online documentation is too complicated or technical (e.g. HTML_QuickForm) or too skimpy (PEAR XML-RPC). Enter David Sklar's book!

David uses concise, clear language with plenty of examples to explain how a certain library works. He goes through it step-by-step, first with a paragraph of descriptive text, then with a snippet of code elucidating what was previously mentioned.

He manages to cover just enough ground to enable you to grasp how to use a certain library without boring you to tears with extraneous, non-essential information.

If you would like to avoid re-inventing the wheel and the introduction of bugs (that almost always follows the insertion of new, untested code), I suggest you procure a copy of Essential PHP Tools today, and read it cover-to-cover!

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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars I hope to see more books like this, June 27, 2004
By Foti Massimo (Vezia (Switzerland)) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
The PHP world is full of great add-ons, modules and tools available for free on the Internet. Unfortunately, many of them lack quality documentation. If you already have a decent understanding of PHP and want to expand your arsenal this book is for you. Take a look at the TOC and you will find plenty of useful material, from portable database connectivity, to SOAP, XML and much more. Each chapter is self-containing, no linear reading is required and you can safely skip something or jump across different topics. I hope to see more books like this; there are many little software gems out there that deserve this kind of treatment
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Tools you will want to know about if you use PHP, May 2, 2004
If you are using PHP with your web applications you will want a copy of "Essential PHP Tools". Author David Sklar has gathered together tools to resolve some of the most common problems of PHP. If you want to do authentication you don't have to hand write the code, a free tool is available. Unfortunately many of the best free tools for PHP also have minimal documentation. David Sklar resolves this problem by providing excellent documentation for each of the tools mentioned in the book. Some of these include tools for accessing databases (using both the DB and ADODB methods), generating and processing forms, templating, XML parsing, sending mail, authentication, working with users and passwords, debugging, caching, and optimizing. The tools are easy to find and useful, the documentation excellent, and the writing style easy to follow. All this makes "Essential PHP Tools" a highly recommended book for anyone using PHP on their webserver.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Extensions? What extensions?
You would think that a PHP book that actually mentioned "Extensions" as part of the title would cover extensions wouldn't you? Read more
Published on August 22, 2005 by J. Wren Hunt

1.0 out of 5 stars Not for beginners
This is really only for advanced PHP programmers. If you are one, it maybe will render in 5 star.
Published on August 19, 2005 by Lars Eriksson

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not great
I bought this book with high expectations.

It is a very good book, well written, and David Sklar really has done a good job writing it. Read more
Published on February 22, 2005 by Firebright

3.0 out of 5 stars Helpful but not comprehensive
This book does alert you to many useful modues, extensions and accelerators and given that many of these are open source and their documentation can be skimpy, it's good to have... Read more
Published on November 3, 2004 by Erik S. Heerlein

5.0 out of 5 stars Good book for add-on tools
I have found HTML & Smarty chapter very useful. You will also find other chapter useful if you have to work on them in real life projects. Overall very practical book.
Published on October 28, 2004 by Software Professional

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