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PHP Cookbook
The approach that the authors use in PHP Cookbook is great. Like most computer books, the authors usually include a summary (in sentence forms) to illustrate what the readers will expect in each chapter. Skalar and Trachtenberg take this even further by including some preliminary (code) examples to explain the general ideas behind each chapters. The examples in the book are self-contained. In most cases, I've found examples to exactly fit my needs -- this makes it one of the better reference books.
Each chapter in the book is divided into multiple sections of Problem / Solution / Discussion with a FAQ style. In each case, a simple description of a problem is followed by a PHP script as the solution. But the meat is actually in the discussions: in-depth details are included here, where the authors also include references, extended ideas, and scripts to inform the readers how much more they can do about the issue.
For example, I was going to add a simple script to my website to parse RSS/RDF files from certain news websites (CNN, Slashdot, ...), and use it as my Mozilla homepage. (Who wouldn't?) This script seems to be simple, but I may make a mistake here and there. As reference, I opened up the book to the section "Parsing XML with SAX." Then I realized the authors already had the script to parse RSS/RDF files in the discussion. Bravo!
For myself, the most useful chapters I found are: Web Basics, Forms, Database Access, and XML. There are also good examples in topics such as security, internationalization, and file processing/management. However, this book does not cover the basics of PHP. If you are a good programmer, you should be able to get away with this using the PHP Manual. A good book to learn PHP is Programming PHP, also by O'Reilly.
Although this book covers a wide range of topics, it does not cover topics like generating PDFs. I would also like to see the authors add one (maybe two) case studies in later editions. That would give the reader a more concrete example of how to combine tricks presented by this book. Other than that, at the price of $39.95 (or $61.95 CAD), this book is a great buy!
Topics
- Strings
- Numbers
- Dates and Times
- Arrays
- Variables
- Functions
- Classes and Objects
- Web Basics - available online as example chapter
- Forms
- Database Access
- Web Automation
- XML
- Regular Expressions
- Encryption and Security
- Graphics
- Internationalization and Localization
- Internet Services
- Files
- Directories
- Client-Side PHP
- PEAR
You can purchase the PHP Cookbook from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
One thing I would like to see more PHP books do is to cover the various Security problems that are prevalent in many PHP based web applications.
Don't get me wrong, I find PHP to be the best and friendliest solution for many things, but some of the Security problems could easily be avoided with some common sense security advice.
In all seriousness I enjoy PHP because it is pretty self explanatory, and it can use plain old html inside it too. It's just nice to use a scripting language for the web that was made for webpages originally, not a language that was created for ...
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Not to be confused with "PHP Developer's Cookbook" (ISBN: 0672323257 - Publisher: Pearson Education) which is a very well regarded reference for PHP. Just wanted to avoid confusion and suggest the book at the same time. There seems to be a flood of PHP/MySQL books out there, or people are just getting around to reviewing them....not sure.
"A teacher overheard him say that he was using PHP, and as part of our Zero-Tolerance policy against drug use, he was immediately suspended. No questions asked," said Principal Clyde Thurlow. "We're not quite sure what PHP is, but we suspect it may be a derivative of PCP, or maybe a new designer drug like GHB."
Parents are frightened by the discovery of this new menace in their children's school, and are demanding the school do something. "We heard that he found out about PHP at school on the internet. There may even be a PHP web ring operating on school grounds," said irate parent Carol Blessing. "School is supposed to be teaching our kids how to read and write. Not about dangerous drugs like PHP."
In response to parental demands the school has reconfigured its internet WatchDog software to block access to all internet sites mentioning PHP. Officials say this should prevent any other students from falling prey like Brett Tyson did. They have also stepped up locker searches and brought in drug sniffing dogs.
Interviews with students suggested that PHP use is wide spread around the school, but is particularly concentrated in the geeky nerd population. When contacted by BBspot.com, Brett Tyson said, "I don't know what the hell is going on dude, but this suspension gives me more time for fraggin'. Yee haw!"
PHP is a hypertext preprocessor, which sounds very dangerous. It is believed that many users started by using Perl and moved on to the more powerful PHP. For more information on how to recognize if your child may be using PHP please visit http://www.php.net.
From the adobe website:
"An open file format specification, PDF is available to anyone who wants to develop tools to create, view, or manipulate PDF documents."
I've been doing PHP web development on and off for a couple of years now and I've always found that it's greatest strength has been the availability of very god online resources.
PHP.net and many other excellent resources are only a browser click away and remain up to date for free. PHP is one of those areas where I'll save my money and buy a book I'll get genuine reference use from.
Here's what I use http://www.fpdf.org/ It's a steep learning curve, but it works
The actual document specification for PDF is open. Adobe just happened to not only create the format, but also make the most popular PDF reader and writer (the Acrobat series.) There are, however, free alternatives such as Ghostscript that generate great PDFs from a Postscript file (which you can generate from any program in Windows just by checking the "Print to File" box on a Postscript printer.)
If you're interested in generating PDFs from PHP, there are a myriad of options available by searching Google. Some web hosting companies also support generating PDFs from PHP, which makes generating PDFs a cinch.
HTH!
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
Yes, it's completely possible, as long as your version of PHP has pdflib [http://pdflib.com/] installed as a module or compiled in.
And, yes, it appears to be legal. (It better be, considering I use it at my job.)
/. itself may not be, but PhpSlash is. Also, I suspect the reason the slashdot crowd likes PHP so much is due to (among other things) a couple of reasons:
1 - It lets you mix html and code in. Sure, it's not the only language that lets you do it, but it's still a strength.
2 - It's free, open source (zend crap excluded)
3 - Microsoft hates it. That's always a plus.
4 - It's increadibly flexible and forgiving. Coming from a c background, this is one of it's most useful features to me. As far as I can tell, most programmers are inherantly lazy; They don't want to work harder than necessary to do a good job. In PHP, types are incredibly loose. If you want to use a string as a integer, a float, and a string all in the same line, you don't have to cast it. It just does it, and the incredibly vast majority of the time, it does just how you expected it to. Why can't C be that smart?
Contact Me (got tired of viruses emailing me).
1) consistant database integration - Why not have a SetDBType() function, rather than hardcoding mysql_connect, mssql_connect, myodbc_connect, pgqsl_connect, etc?
.NET support?
2) Native XML support - It's just not there? Why re-invent the wheel each time? Give us a good XML tree-walking engine DAMMIT!
3) sane and consistant functions. Single quotes, double quotes, some functions work with both, some work with one or the other, embedded html in an echo screws up if you don't double quote it, etc.
4)
In short, PHP is a good language for small projects, but just doesn't cut it in an enterprise setting.
JP
Can you generate a PDF with PHP without also generating an Adobe lawsuit?
There's no liability shield built in, but FPDF is a great tool that can generate PDFs using PHP without the need for using a commercially-licensed (read "expensive") PDF generating library. I like it because it is distributed under a BSD-like license.
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
Relevant, real-life useful examples are given and even a seasoned pro like me picked up a few gems like the example user authentication code that utilizes a hash instead of having to go back to the database on each page fetch.
My bookshelves are full of PHP books but most of them are inferior to the online documentation at php.net. They add nothing and are a true waste of trees. This one, however, does not fall into that category.
AZspot
If that is a challenge, then I accept. I can guarantee you that for every command in PHP, there is an equivalent command (or module) in Perl. Hence you should be able to write this imaginary program in exactly the same number of lines...
Have a look at Embperl, HTML::Mason, Apache::ASP for a couple of examples of how to do this. Most people who knock perl have never discovered the right tools. Personally I would never use those tools, because I am a strong believer in the separation of Code and HTML. I use a templating system for all my projects, and you will never see one HTML tag in my code. Once you work with a team of developers and a separate team of designers you will understand the need for this separation.
PHP is a great tool! I have used it for several applications in the past (6 or 7 years ago). But if you think that PHP can do more than perl can then you are mistaken...
Amen!
I did a lot of Perl development before switching to PHP, and some of the things you mention that are missing from Perl are readily available as modules from CPAN. But that just adds another point in PHP's favour -- the default install comes with all the stuff you mentioned.
Before anyone gets their Perl backs up, let me point out why a good default install is important for web development: you don't always have control over the server, so you can't always get the Perl modules you want. (But if you want to re-write your code, sometimes, you'll get what you need! (Couldn't resist.))
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
So what are you saying is better than PHP? Running ASP with Javascript (or ECMAscript to be pedantic)?
If you can tell me that handling forms and working with databases can be done better with something other than PHP please do.
Also, please tell us what is a 'bigger' language, if PHP and *gasp* Perl are so little?
I wonder because I started in ASP with VBScript. I learned Perl and PHP and now I do PHP pretty much full time. If I want a script that is blantent CGI I use Perl. To me PHP and Perl completely blow away (not blow chunks) ASP with VBScript -- they are far better languages for web development. I can't say exactly why I think that, but one of the main things for me is the quality of the community surrounding the language. There's a lot more user support for PHP and Perl which to me is more helpful than the MSDN library will ever be. I also like a lot of punctuation -- but that's just a personal preference.
As far as switching back and forth between languages (JavaScript and PHP, for example), I never thought it was so silly. To me, doing things client-side is distinctly different from doing things server-side. It's no problem to have different languages for those two things. Especially when have to limit what you do on the client side because every browser is different. It seems to me like wasted effort to spend to much time on JavaScript stuff, because lo and behold browser X won't support what I'm trying to do. If I do it server side in PHP, I have an easier time writing portable code.
You certainly have a right to advocate your language of choice, and probably a right to bash others, but could you explain yourself a little better?
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
PHP actually is not a language. PHP is an engine for embedded scripting languages in markup documents. Zend is the scripting language that most people generalize as "PHP", but any other scripting language could also be developed and used with the PHP engine.
You have that ass-backwards. PHP is the language, Zend, the engine. Any other scripting language could be developed and used with the Zend engine.
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.