CodeIgniter for Rapid PHP Application Development: Improve your PHP coding productivity with the free compact open-source MVC CodeIgniter framework! (Paperback)

~ David Upton (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Improve your PHP coding productivity with the free compact open-source MVC CodeIgniter framework!

• Clear, structured tutorial on working with CodeIgniter
• Careful explanation of the basic concepts of CodeIgniter and its MVC architecture
• Using CodeIgniter with databases, HTML forms, files, images, sessions, and email
• Building a dynamic website quickly and easily using CodeIgniter's prepared code

In Detail

CodeIgniter (CI) is a powerful open-source PHP framework with a very small footprint, built for PHP coders who need a simple and elegant toolkit to create full-featured web applications. CodeIgniter is an MVC framework, similar in some ways to the Rails framework for Ruby, and is designed to enable, not overwhelm.

This book explains how to work with CodeIgniter in a clear logical way. It is not a detailed guide to the syntax of CodeIgniter, but makes an ideal complement to the existing online CodeIgniter user guide, helping you grasp the bigger picture and bringing together many ideas to get your application development started as smoothly as possible.

What you will learn from this book?

• Setting up the CI package on your web server
• Understanding the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern for organizing a dynamic website
• Understanding the structure of a CI site
• Designing better views and controllers
• Object-oriented aspects of CI
• Integrating databases such as MySQL and simplifying your database access
• Making your site more robust and professional by using CI's built-in classes
• Creating and validating HTML forms with CI form helpers
• Handling files, images, and sessions with CI
• Sending email from CI
• Using CI for testing your code with error handling, unit testing, benchmarking, and profiling
• Getting an XML-RPC server and client working
• Generating Create, Update, Delete, and Read (C.R.U.D) entries on each database table

Approach

This book steps you through the main features of CodeIgniter in a systematic way, explaining them clearly with illustrative code examples.

Who this book is written for?

This book is for developers who are new to CodeIgniter. Basic skills in PHP and MySQL are required, but only rudimentary object-oriented knowledge is required.

If you're looking for a better way to develop PHP applications, or want to find out more about the CodeIgniter framework as a viable option for one of your own projects, this book will help you.

About the Author

David Upton

David Upton is a director of a specialized management consultancy company, based in London but working around the world. His clients include some of the world's largest companies. He is increasingly interested in web-enabling his work, and seeking to turn ideas into robust professional applications by the simplest and easiest route. He has so far written applications for two major companies in the UK. His other interests include simulation, on which he writes a weblog which takes up far too much of his time, and thinking.

Product Details

• Paperback: 220 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing (July 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847191746
• ISBN-13: 978-1847191748
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #225,386 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hesitant at first, December 22, 2007

By	Jesse D. Terry "Jesse Terry" (Flagstaff, AZ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When I first discovered CodeIgniter, I was overcome with glee after following the video tutorials. It all worked. There was no need to rely on any command-line interaction to "automagically" build my application for me. There was no dependence on PEAR or any other outside resources. There was just CodeIgniter. And it worked.

As soon as I got a grasp on what it was doing and why, I dove into the excellent User Guide and began to feel all warm and fuzzy inside. This felt like home. The user guide is written in such a non-intimidating manner that it invites even the most timid of PHP developers. To this day, I still refer to the user guide when I forget specific syntax or function names and it's a guick in-and-out routine. Nothing at all complex about it.

Not too long ago I came across a book by Packt Publishing called 'CodeIgniter for Rapid PHP Application Development'. At first, I thought to myself, "Why?". The combination of the user guide, the forum and CodeIgniter's well structured code is surely enough for anybody to learn, right? What could this book have that any potential developer could not obtain through these natural resources?

Throughout the fifteen chapters in the book, the author walks you through building a functional application from start to finish (well, at least as finished as any web application truly is). At first I thought the choice of the application to build was rather odd, but as I continued reading the book, I realized it was a good example because of the wide array of helpers, libraries and other standard CodeIgniter components and logic the application uses. Specifically, the example application provides a way to monitor several different aspects of remote websites by performing tests and generating reports. The author does a great job of walking the reader through the process step by step while explaining why and how the various CodeIgniter components are being used.

However, I did find the odd spelling error here and there and I don't necessarily agree with outputting HTML from a model, but overall this book is a great addition to the natural resources that the user guide and forum provide. This book will be of no help to the (albeit few) people that immediately jump into the forums asking "how do I..." without taking a little time to read through the user guide and searching pre-existent forum threads to find a solution for their problem, but for those who truly want to learn more about the framework and want to have a good book on hand, then this book certainly does the trick.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PHP 201 - this is it!, November 10, 2007

By	Douglas Karr "The Marketing Technology Blog" (Greenwood, IN United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

My favorite book on PHP/MySQL is still PHP and MySQL Web Development (3rd Edition) (Developer's Library). It's PHP 101 and MySQL 101 all wrapped up in a fantastic, comprehensive book with tons of code samples.

CodeIgniter is a perfect compliment, perhaps a PHP 201 guide. It takes all of the rigorous PHP hard-coding and supplies a framework to develop code faster and with the best practices of a MVC system. Aside from being well-written with tons of real-world examples, one of the things I like best about this book is that it explains what it's not. CodeIgniter is a home-grown open-source framework. As such, it has some admitted limitations. The book is refreshing and honest.

The book is a perfect way of learning advanced development techniques, not just using CodeIgniter though. I'd highly recommend the book. The book states "Improve your PHP coding productivity with the free compact open-source MVC CodeIgniter framework!". This is both honest and accurate!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Deeper Overview, September 10, 2008

By	Dale Vogel (Burtonsville, MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

CodeIgniter is the fastest PHP framework out there, and it works. There are very few bugs in the code. The other thing that CodeIgniter has that other frameworks don't is a good forum and excellent documentation. It has an outstanding Users Guide you can download which lists every function with a code example.

And now, there are two books out on CodeIgniter. I purchased both books, read this one from cover to cover, and am 1/3 of the way through the "Professional CodeIgniter" book, which is much slower going. I figure folks might want to know the difference before they buy.

"CodeIgniter for Rapid PHP..." is a detailed overview of CodeIgniter. First, I have to disagree with the previous reviewer. This book does not walk you through a complete application. There is part of an application in Chap 13 & 14, but that's it. This is an overview book. It is more verbose than the User's Guide, and arranges the topics in a different, perhaps, more understandable format. This is a reading book. You're not meant to sit at your computer, and input the code with this book. Instead the code is presented in a "how to do this" type of format, and now, let's move on to the next topic. There is not a consistent application throughout the book that glues all the chapters together. This could be a reference for CodeIgniter, except I wish it had a better Index. For example, there is no Model topic under M in the Index which lists only "Menu" under "M." In contrast, "Professional CodeIgniter" lists 24 subtopics under "Model" in its Index.

Having gone through the negatives, I still rate this book 4 stars, because it is very readable, and there is value to be gained from the read. It's an excellent detailed overview. There are pearls and tidbits that you pick up in the book that make it worthwhile. You get a good overall feel of CodeIgniter from the book. It's also nice to read a computer book without necessarily running to the computer every two pages. You don't need your computer to benefit from this book, unlike the "Professional CodeIgniter" book which you do need a computer, and is not as easily read which I'll review on its page.