Learning PHP Data Objects: A Beginner's Guide to PHP Data Objects, Database Connection Abstraction Library for PHP 5 (Paperback)

~ Dennis Popel (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

A Beginner's Guide to PHP Data Objects, Database Connection Abstraction Library for PHP 5

• An overview of PDO
• Creating a database and connecting to it
• Error Handling
• Advanced features

In Detail

PDO is lighter, faster, and more powerful than existing PHP data abstraction interfaces. PDO is a common interface to different databases that must be used with a database-specific PDO driver to access a particular database server: the PDO extension does not provide a database abstraction by itself; it doesn't rewrite SQL, emulate missing database features, or perform any database functions using by itself. It performs the same role as other classic database abstraction layers such as ODBC and JDBC: it's a query abstraction layer that abstracts the mechanism for accessing a database and manipulating the returned records; each database driver that implements the PDO interface can also expose database-specific features as regular extension functions. ¬ PDO ships with PHP 5.1, and is available as an extension for PHP 5.0; it requires the new object-oriented features of PHP 5, and cannot run with earlier versions of PHP.

This book will teach you how to use the PDO, including its advanced features. Readers need to be aware of the basics of data abstraction and should be familiar with PHP.

What you will learn from this book?

This book covers:

• An overview of the technology
• Getting started with PDO
• Error handling, prepared statements, and handling rowsets
• Advanced features, like getting column metadata and setting connection parameters with examples

Approach

This book describes the topic first and then gives step-by-step instructions on how to go about a particular example.

Who this book is written for?

PHP developers who need to use PDO for data abstraction.

About the Author

Dennis Popel

Dennis Popel is an experienced PHP/PHP5 developer currently working for an Australian web development company, Motive Media (motivemedia.com.au). Serving Sun Microsystems Australia, Luna Park Sydney, Alsco Holdings and Pine Solutions, amongst others, Dennis leads company development of proprietary, web-based, software solutions. In his spare time, he runs the onPHP5.com blog and works on an online RSS aggregator NewzMix.

Dennis Popel has been developing with PHP for more than 5 years and is experienced in such fields as object-oriented design and MVC.

Previously he has worked at Rapid Intelligence, another Australian-based web company, publisher of such popular titles as NationMaster.com, FactBites.com and Qwika.com. In the past, Dennis was developing proprietary Java applications.

This book is devoted to all the people that introduced and guided me in this wonderful world of information technology.

Product Details

• Paperback: 188 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing (August 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847192661
• ISBN-13: 978-1847192660
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #961,965 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Foundation Book, September 25, 2007

By	Sammy Sumer (Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I like the book's erudite methodology. The methodology of this book is based on the two tenets of sound education:

Informing
Demonstrating

In this books after the information I found lots of exercises, step by step, with plenty of pictures and screen shots that lead me through and demonstrated a process of task. These exercises are fantastic guides.
The author has used a case study approach, which is perfect for me because I learn by doing and practising.

The author has identified the stable and core concepts of PDO and presented them in a way that gives us the strongest possible starting point, no matter what our endeavour.

Be warned that you are assumed to have a basic understanding of Object Oriented Programming to make the most of this book.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Introductory Tutorial, a little overpriced, February 24, 2009

By	MediaWiki Guru (Tennessee, USA) - See all my reviews

I recently purchased this book with the primary objective of learning more about the PDO extension for PHP. As an intermediate level PHP programmer, I was not disappointed.

The book is well-written as an introductory tutorial, and walks you through the development of a simple library management application using the PDO extension of PHP for the database interface. There are a few typos, but nothing that someone familiar with PHP programming couldn't catch; however, the typos would interfere with this book being used as an introductory tutorial.

After reading this book and working through the tutorial, I am definitely able to implement the principles learned through this book, and feel that I picked up enough basics about PDO to be able to expand my knowledge on the subject with little enough effort.

In the past I've been rather disappointed in the technical books I've purchased that were published by Packt Publishers -- they've been plagued with typos and are generally overpriced for the breadth and depth of material covered; however this book came much closer to being worth the purchase price.

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book if you're looking for a fast overview, January 1, 2009

By	M. Skinner (Colorado Springs, CO) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is targeted for PHP developers that are moving to PHP Data Objects (PDO) introduced in PHP 5. If you have limited experience with Object Oriented Programming (OOP), the book includes an appendix with almost 20 pages of OOP instruction with lot of PDO examples. If you don't need the OOP lesson, there are 154 pages dedicated to PDO.

The benefit of spending nearly $40 on 154 pages is to rapidly experience the benefits of PDO though lots of examples. If you're an advanced php developer, this book may not be for you. If you have limited experience with OOP and/or need a quick boost, this book has my recommendation.