Professional PHP4 XML [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

~ Luis Argerich (Author), Chris Lea (Author), Ken Egervari (Author), Matt Anton (Author), Chris Hubbard (Author), James Fuller (Author), Charlie Killian (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This book covers the PHP language (and is up to date with the latest 4.2 release), the XML standard and the intersection between these widely used technologies. You will learn the "core" standards for XML processing such as Xpath,Dom,SAX and XSLT and how to use them from PHP. Satellite standards, vocabularies and other technical topics related to XML processing are also covered with examples, tips and suggestions from an experienced field of PHP programmers and XML experts.

From the Publisher

This book is a tutorial, a resource and a reference for PHP programmers who need to process XML data or interface different systems using XML. Non PHP programmers who need to construct a web based frontend for an application using XML can learn how to do it using PHP, since the book also covers the basic foundations of PHP programming.

Advanced PHP programmers experienced in XML will obtain a reference as well as a very deep coverage on advanced topics.

Here is the book in a nutshell:

- Fundamentals of the PHP programming based on PHP4

- Fundamentals of XML

- Summary of the large list of XML derivatives and a description of them

- "Core" XML standards and how to use them from PHP: SAX,DOM,Xpath,XSLT

- Coverage of the brand new DOM extension for PHP 4.2

- Installation procedures for XML-related PHP extensions both for Unix and Windows

- Implementation and use of web services using PHP and XML-RPC

- Interfacing with other systems using PHP as a client

- Storing and retrieving XML data using PHP

- Using popular XML vocabularies such as SVG, RSS and WML from PHP

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Product Details

• Paperback: 850 pages
• Publisher: Peer Information; 1st edition (June 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861007213
• ISBN-13: 978-1861007216
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.2 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #992,529 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smart, Innovative and Effective, August 9, 2002

By	Dr. Joseph Dreury (Armonk, NY) - See all my reviews

This book offers an incredible guide and reference to everything you can do with XML and PHP. Not only does this book cover the fundamentals of XML, such as SAX, DOM, XPATH and XSLT, but it covers rich topics like Apache Xindice, advanced XML storage techniques, XML-RPC, SOAP and a variety of both functional and object-oriented approaches to all these concepts.

At IBM, we have always been a strong advocator of PHP for being the perfect language for connecting to databases over the web and offering dynamic content and services. It's simple, elegant, easy and effective. Even further, IBM has always explored XML within PHP and has advocated the use of PHP with our DB2 product.

This book takes your existing PHP skills in HTML and databases and brings them to a whole new level. By taking your current knowledge and adding XML into the mix, this book will truely help you think creatively and create more complex applications. Even given all the hype around "Web Services", this book takes an incredible look into XML-RPC and SOAP. The authors have done, in my opinion, a fantastic job.

I give this book 5 stars because it truely deserves such a rating. The book is absolutely solid. If you want to learn anything from the fundamentals of XML all the way to Web Services, this book will show you the path and everything in-between.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brillently Explained!, July 15, 2002

By	Bob Jones (Washington, USA) - See all my reviews

I've purchased many PHP books over the years, learning PHP and programming from the ground up. I've just started dabbling with XML and I needed a resource that would get me going on the right footing. After a bit of searching, I decided to purchase Professional PHP4 XML and I must say, this book told me everything I wanted to know and more! As I read each chapter, I gained new insight into how XML and it's various technologies could make me a better programmer, designer and could help my client's projects. By taking the author's advice, I even gained new insight to programming some tools to make my job easier as a whole. These guys are truely brilliant and well experienced with PHP and XML - truely the leaders in their respective field.

Given that I was new to XML, I started at the beginning and worked my way through the book. Outside of the chapter on SVG graphics, I found this book to engage in everything I was looking for and more. Every page is filled with insight and the DOM chapter even has notes for PHP 4.3.0! Talk about the Wrox crew planning in advance! It is obvious they put a great deal of work into making sure this book is to last.

Since I'm a businessman as well as a programmer, I gained valuable insight from manner of the chapters as it appears these authors are pretty smart business people as well. By seeing all perspectives in a consistent, seemless and non-bloated manner, I can honestly say I feel like a true expert with XML technologies. The book provides many examples, clearly explained as well as well written. Given the book outlines OO examples with the functional ones, I could see both paradigms being demonstrated together. This approached has engage me and my fellow programmers to write more OO code. This book has pretty much revolutionized my way of programming and thinking. I'd recommend it to any PHP programmer, regardless of their experience.

Fantastic book!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pros & Cons of A Helpful Reference for PHPers, July 5, 2002

By	"mec484" (RI, United States) - See all my reviews

Pros & Cons...
- Comes with an index of XML technologies and how and where to apply them in PHP; this is quality advice for the PHP programmer who doesn't have the time to read all the W3 specs, but who does need be sure that they're using the right XML tool for the job.

- SAX/DOM/XPATH/XSLT are all given an in-depth review from a PHP programmer's viewpoint. Found this helpful in compelling me to start using these technologies more, mainly because these examples are out-of-the-box useful.

- I'm probably not alone in sometimes feeling overwhelmed by XML in terms of 'what, how and where' the database fits and what the datbase does. Most PHP programmers I know are attached at the hip to MySQL (& postgres), so when this book touches on where those databases overlap (intentionally or not?) it's a big help. It's by no means exhaustive but was sufficient to aid comprehension of the many APIs -- specifically how to use them in dealing with the output/input of XML from RDBMs.

- Enjoyed and found interesting the chapter on SOAP use, along with some neat PHP samples, both useful and less so. One shows how to auto-generate SOAP requests using XSLT on a WSDL file. This chapter also tries to clear the thick fog about how everything will be put together in a world of web services (called SOA -- Service Orientated Architecture).

- You won't need 3-4 different books, as XSLT/XPATH/SAX/XML/DOM
are listed with relevant PHP commands as appendixes.

- The SVG chapter may someday prove useful but not today. I don't use it or expect to need it, honestly.

- XML-RPC is heavily covered as you'd expect. The rather large case study attempted to show how everything *could* dovetail neatly.

To analogize (though it's admittedly a bit of a stretch), this book is to PHP programmers what Michael Kay's reference book is to XSLT programmers, though achieved with completely different styles. If you're a confident/curious/cantankerous PHP programmer who needs to know quickly how and where to apply these technologies, I'd highly recommend it.