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

by David Sklar (Author)
Key Phrases: diet cardboard, code caches, ice cream flavors, Accessing Databases, Zend Engine, Guava Mint Bouillon (more...)

Editorial Reviews

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.

About the Author
David Sklar is an instructor at the New School University and an independent technology consultant. He is also the coauthor of the book <i>PHP Cookbook</i> and the author of the forthcoming <i>Learning PHP</i>. David has spoken at many conferences, including the O'Reilly Open Source Conference, the EGovOS Open Source/Open Standards Conference, and the International PHP Conference. His consulting practice focuses on interactive Internet applications, distributed systems, scalability, and security. Additionally, David is a principal of the Transparency Project, a nonprofit organization that coordinates data markup standards and builds tools that analyze publicly available political and campaign finance information. David was a founder and the chief technology officer of both Student.Com and TVGrid.Com, where he led teams of PHP developers that built multilingual data-driven web applications. He holds a degree in computer science from Yale University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Apress (September 18, 2008)
• 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: #322,811 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

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

By	J. Sheth "poetry and code in my abode" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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!

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

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

By	Harold McFarland (Florida) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.