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Pro PHP Security
Michael J. Ross writes "The global accessibility of Web sites is a double-edged sword: At the same time that your online e-commerce site is open for business to anyone with an Internet connection, it is also open to malicious attack. Web sites based upon the popular language PHP, are no exception. Thus, it is both astonishing and worrisome that there are currently so few books devoted to PHP security — particularly ones that go beyond the handful of typical security countermeasures discussed in articles. Fortunately, Pro PHP Security, written by Chris Snyder and Michael Southwell, is intended to fill this critical need." Read the rest of Michael's review.
Pro PHP Security
author
Chris Snyder and Michael Southwell
pages
528
publisher
Apress
rating
9
reviewer
Michael J. Ross
ISBN
1590595084
summary
A comprehensive guide to developing secure PHP-based Web sites.
Pro PHP Security spans 528 pages, consisting of 24 chapters organized into four major parts. The first part, comprising only one chapter, explains the nature and significance of computer security, and reasons as to why absolute security is an unattainable goal. Nonetheless, it is worthwhile to take all appropriate and reasonable security measures, and the authors provide a brief overview of the different types of attacks to which Web applications are vulnerable.
On their Web site, Apress has a page devoted to the book, where they offer the book's source code (in a Zip archive file), the table of contents, corrections to the book (i.e., errata), and a sample chapter (Chapter 12 - Preventing SQL Injection) in PDF format. In addition, there is a link for any reader who would like to purchase this title as an e-book.
One of the most laudable aspects of Pro PHP Security, is that the authors — both experienced software and Web site developers — go far beyond the standard PHP security advice of validating and escaping user input, etc. Those topics are covered in depth, but they are provided in the context of thorough discussions as to how to set up a secure environment in which to use those techniques. In addition, the authors present best practices that have evolved over time, as Web masters and system administrators have learned — often the hard way — the general types of attacks to which their Web sites and computer networks have been subjected.
In fact, Snyder and Southwell hold off on presenting the aforesaid specific PHP security techniques, until the third part of the book. Prior to that, they explain the characteristics of a secure online computing environment, such as using encryption, securing network connections via SSL and SSH, controlling access via authentication and permissions, and other important topics. Their coverage of the subject matter is complete, without being overwhelming. For instance, the material on encryption is helpfully divided into two separate chapters — devoted to theory and practice, respectively. Consequently, a PHP application developer or system administrator can immediately dive into the authors' recommended practices for encoding sensitive data, without getting bogged down in the theoretical underpinnings, if the reader is in a hurry to implement encryption on their own systems, or simply has no interest in the theory behind the methods.
As noted earlier, Part 3 of this monograph explains all of the well-known techniques that crackers use for attacking PHP-based Web sites, as well as the countermeasures that should be adopted by the developer or maintainer of the site. First up is validation of user input, which — though being essential to basic security — is still neglected on far too many Web sites. The attention to detail seen in this discussion is also reflected in the subsequent chapters, which cover SQL injection, cross-site scripting, remote execution, temporary files, and session hijacking. For each topic, the authors explain how the typical attack is attempted, and what needs to be done to prevent such attacks.
The fourth and last major part of the book covers vitally important topics that are usually glossed over in most PHP security books, or neglected altogether. Snyder and Southwell explain methods of limiting access to your Web site to humans (thus minimizing attacks that employ scripts), verifying the identities of those users, authorizing what those users can do on your system, and tracking their actions once they have logged in. The authors also explain how to reduce the chances of data loss, and how to execute system commands and make remote procedure calls without exposing your site to vulnerabilities. The last chapter covers the benefits to be gained from opening up your site and its source code to a review by your technical peers.
This book has much to recommend it: The discussions of security issues are more complete and thorough than in any other book that I have seen. The information chosen by the authors is detailed enough to be understandable and usable, but not so excessive as to prove daunting or discouraging to the reader who needs answers to their security questions, and does not have the time or inclination to slog through academic or pointless discussion. The information is well-organized, and presented in context, so the reader is not simply given a laundry list of security techniques, but instead better understands the rationale behind them. Lastly, because no technical topic can be covered in full in a single book, the authors provide a generous number of references to outside resources.
The content of this book appears to have only one noticeable weakness, and that is the poor quality of the comments in the sample source code. Not only are they few in number and lacking in detail, but they are written in all lowercase letters, with little to no punctuation. This coding style results in the comments visually blending in with the code itself, and makes reading both to be more difficult than is justifiable.
The physical book itself also has only one weakness, and that may only apply to a portion of the copies produced and distributed by the publisher. Specifically, the bottom and side edges of the book are cut cleanly, while the top edge is quite rough. As I was unable to find any mention within the book as to a possible reason or advantage for having the rough edging on top of the pages, I can only conclude that it was not intended on the part of Apress, and represents an error in production. I hope that the copy that I received — kindly given to me by the publisher — is not representative of all the copies produced and sold.
In spite of these minor complaints, I was quite pleased with this book. Pro PHP Security is arguably the most comprehensive PHP security book available, and is highly recommended to any developer or administrator of a PHP-based Web site.
Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter of PristinePlanet.com."
You can purchase Pro PHP Security from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Pro PHP Security spans 528 pages, consisting of 24 chapters organized into four major parts. The first part, comprising only one chapter, explains the nature and significance of computer security, and reasons as to why absolute security is an unattainable goal. Nonetheless, it is worthwhile to take all appropriate and reasonable security measures, and the authors provide a brief overview of the different types of attacks to which Web applications are vulnerable.
On their Web site, Apress has a page devoted to the book, where they offer the book's source code (in a Zip archive file), the table of contents, corrections to the book (i.e., errata), and a sample chapter (Chapter 12 - Preventing SQL Injection) in PDF format. In addition, there is a link for any reader who would like to purchase this title as an e-book.
One of the most laudable aspects of Pro PHP Security, is that the authors — both experienced software and Web site developers — go far beyond the standard PHP security advice of validating and escaping user input, etc. Those topics are covered in depth, but they are provided in the context of thorough discussions as to how to set up a secure environment in which to use those techniques. In addition, the authors present best practices that have evolved over time, as Web masters and system administrators have learned — often the hard way — the general types of attacks to which their Web sites and computer networks have been subjected.
In fact, Snyder and Southwell hold off on presenting the aforesaid specific PHP security techniques, until the third part of the book. Prior to that, they explain the characteristics of a secure online computing environment, such as using encryption, securing network connections via SSL and SSH, controlling access via authentication and permissions, and other important topics. Their coverage of the subject matter is complete, without being overwhelming. For instance, the material on encryption is helpfully divided into two separate chapters — devoted to theory and practice, respectively. Consequently, a PHP application developer or system administrator can immediately dive into the authors' recommended practices for encoding sensitive data, without getting bogged down in the theoretical underpinnings, if the reader is in a hurry to implement encryption on their own systems, or simply has no interest in the theory behind the methods.
As noted earlier, Part 3 of this monograph explains all of the well-known techniques that crackers use for attacking PHP-based Web sites, as well as the countermeasures that should be adopted by the developer or maintainer of the site. First up is validation of user input, which — though being essential to basic security — is still neglected on far too many Web sites. The attention to detail seen in this discussion is also reflected in the subsequent chapters, which cover SQL injection, cross-site scripting, remote execution, temporary files, and session hijacking. For each topic, the authors explain how the typical attack is attempted, and what needs to be done to prevent such attacks.
The fourth and last major part of the book covers vitally important topics that are usually glossed over in most PHP security books, or neglected altogether. Snyder and Southwell explain methods of limiting access to your Web site to humans (thus minimizing attacks that employ scripts), verifying the identities of those users, authorizing what those users can do on your system, and tracking their actions once they have logged in. The authors also explain how to reduce the chances of data loss, and how to execute system commands and make remote procedure calls without exposing your site to vulnerabilities. The last chapter covers the benefits to be gained from opening up your site and its source code to a review by your technical peers.
This book has much to recommend it: The discussions of security issues are more complete and thorough than in any other book that I have seen. The information chosen by the authors is detailed enough to be understandable and usable, but not so excessive as to prove daunting or discouraging to the reader who needs answers to their security questions, and does not have the time or inclination to slog through academic or pointless discussion. The information is well-organized, and presented in context, so the reader is not simply given a laundry list of security techniques, but instead better understands the rationale behind them. Lastly, because no technical topic can be covered in full in a single book, the authors provide a generous number of references to outside resources.
The content of this book appears to have only one noticeable weakness, and that is the poor quality of the comments in the sample source code. Not only are they few in number and lacking in detail, but they are written in all lowercase letters, with little to no punctuation. This coding style results in the comments visually blending in with the code itself, and makes reading both to be more difficult than is justifiable.
The physical book itself also has only one weakness, and that may only apply to a portion of the copies produced and distributed by the publisher. Specifically, the bottom and side edges of the book are cut cleanly, while the top edge is quite rough. As I was unable to find any mention within the book as to a possible reason or advantage for having the rough edging on top of the pages, I can only conclude that it was not intended on the part of Apress, and represents an error in production. I hope that the copy that I received — kindly given to me by the publisher — is not representative of all the copies produced and sold.
In spite of these minor complaints, I was quite pleased with this book. Pro PHP Security is arguably the most comprehensive PHP security book available, and is highly recommended to any developer or administrator of a PHP-based Web site.
Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter of PristinePlanet.com."
You can purchase Pro PHP Security from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Here is an observation: With all the publicity Ruby on Rails and other frameworks like Zend Framework, Turbogears and the like are receiving these days--why are we not seeing an innumerable number of security trolls like Chris Shiflett on the *framework side of web development? My thoughts are that PHP users are told "you can too" when in many cases, with forums other resources like the ten gazillion books, they *can*, to an extent (but either with really bad help or books assuming the reader is not working on a *real* project).
Conversely, Rails, Turbogears and Symphony are, too, saying "you can too." Yet, where are the security trolls? It seems though that the *actual* users of the *frameworks, the ones using them for real-life projects are those who have struggled with PHP and (perl, python, etc...) CGI programming for so long and decided "fuck it." Things like database abstraction (and therefore quoting, etc), single-entry-point, and template-safety are, in the most part, taken care of for you.
P.S. XSS is not a PHP problem!
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Wow "Pro PHP" and "PHP Security" both in the same title! (Just kidding! I know PHP is really the web development platform of choice for professionals, and is incredibly secure!)
---------------------------------------------
SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've found it very easy to pick up and learn for doing simple tasks with and without database interaction, and I have relatively little programming experience...
The physical book itself also has only one weakness...Specifically, the bottom and side edges of the book are cut cleanly, while the top edge is quite rough.
This is because someone tried to do a physical attack on the top edge of the PHP Security book.
However, the Page's Horizontal Periphery security kept it from getting through.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
While only partly on topic, I have recently been wondering how to implement user/role management in PHP in a reusable, secure and performant way. I could do it myself, but using procedural programming/direkt SQL requests you quickly end up with code that is hard to reuse. Using O/R mapping seems to be not practical because a) no good solutions for PHP exist yet so it lacks performance and/or flexibility, and b) I need a solution that the end user can install without shell access, via FTP.
Are there any secure user/role management solutions that you can recommend? What are the advantages and where are the drawbacks? How du you solve user/role management in a reusable way?
If you're getting the bulk of your programming experience from PHP, you have trouble ahead. :-) I realize that sounds like snarky crap, and it is to some extent, but it pays to sit down with a good book about the fundamentals of computing and programming design. Something like How to Design Programs (google it -- available free online), which makes use of Scheme, will make you ten times as productive when/if you return to PHP.
Well, just because it's easy to learn doesn't mean that it's well designed, does it?
PHP as a language is outclassed by Ruby and Python, yet they aren't beating it back in the web arena. Why?
Ignoring support by ISP's there is are two main reasons I think from the developers perspective,
1) PHP's online documentation of both the core language it's standard libraries is comprehensive. I'm not even aware of where I could find documentation on Python libraries to communicate with MySQL, with PHP it's all shipped in the package and all documented in one place - php.net. One place I might add where users/developers can and do comment and actually make the documentation better and clearer (although some bad ideas get into the mix too, they are usually corrected by following comments). All the Python and Ruby documentation seems to be humped into two ends of the spectrum, 101 and web framework. Atleast this is the impression I get as someone once interested in Python for web development, after being spoilt for documentation at PHP it's just frustrating.
2) PHP allows you to inline your code into your documents (as does ASP) providing a, nasty, dangerous yet incredibly easy route for people from a web design background to get into web development without any programming knowledge. As these users develop, some will become well seasoned and actually start to seperate code from design. The rate at which people are being introduced to server side scripting and indeed PHP is, in my opinion, probably increasing and there is always, for that reason, alot of unsavvy PHP users.
It's also worth mentioning that to a certain extent, Ruby on Rails gems (which I haven't used personally) and Perl's CPAN solve some of the shortfalls, but Python seens way behind.
eom
I found it cheaper in my local book store. I find it rude /. didn't link to it! Or for that matter a site wher eI can get that book in a deal with others, Maybe pick up some DVD's too! I mean come on are we expected to do our own research before buying a book! I mean /. does link to B&N but yah man I'm not fucking typing the name of the book into amazon that's like work!
oogly boogly!
I've noticed this is quite common with open source stuff. Usually there is either a lack of books or the ones that are out are quite uninformative or little more than overviews. Could be open source programmers tend to look through various sources of online documentation thus staving possible book writers/publishers/etc of customers. Or the everything should be free mentality starves these vendors of possible customers. Also the quickly changing nature of most open source projects means that many times the books are outdated as soon as they are published.
No of course not, however, that does not mean that being "easy to learn" should not be a factor that can go into a "well designed" language.
no, I didn't actually.
He doesn't know anything about security. For years he told people to use addslashes() to protect against SQL injection, even though dozens of people pointed out that he was wrong, he simply deleted such comments on his blog. After someone finally made their own site just to warn people about this charlatan, he finally went back and edited his old comments to hide his bullshit, and make it appear as though he never advocated addslashes().
I've owned this book for a few months now.
It's a good book to get started with PHP Security ideas. It has a lot of theory and explains a lot of issues. However, I don't like the examples or how the book uses the examples.
Often times I would have like to see a larger scale project outline shown, instead of just the theory. But, it was worth the purchase.
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
Scheme? Stab me in the eye with a pointy stick. I can't program in a language where lines end with 5 to 15 closing parentheses ;).
- For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
Ha Ha! Charade you are!
Unfortunately, this is not a luxury that some website owners/creators have the luxury of...
On a more serious note. At lot of sites are "set it and forget it." Probably less that actually do e-commerce (or any volume of it). But I even do it every now and then...I just updated my libraries and packages, so its all good, nothing to worry about. Then a week goes by, a month...and the window is opened.
Maintaining a secure site and code base is a constant battle. And again unfortunately again one that most tend to either forget or ignore.
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
You know, I honestly have to agree with you. I've been coding in PHP for a few years now, and while I'm trying to learn C++ on the side, it's finally making me understand a lot of the concepts and basics. That would have come in handy.
You've obviously not tried. ;-) Regardless, the point of using Scheme for HtDP is that its simple syntax and semantics make it useful as a teaching language. The knowledge one gets from HtDP can be applies to any number of other languages.
I understand the current group think is bash PHP but let me try to stick a somewhat sensible word in. The goal of PHP is to be able to make scripts quickly that will then be able to support thousands of hits a day without too much tinkering. I find it incredible that people are still complaining that with PHP its too easy to make security holes. These people often refer to the fact that alot of young "N008S" are playing with it. Well that might not be because its an easy language but maybe because it fits what they want to do. Lots of people these days don't want to make a single player game, they want a multiplayer game. They want to be connected and with PHP and its many built in functions mass accessibility, C like syntax it makes it easy for people to pick and twiddle around with. The real problem aren't people who are making insecure sites, its the people who are hiring people with no credentials to make sites. No Zend Certified Engeneer will have glaring security holes in their applications, we don't just hire some guy off the street to do a GUI app so why are they hiring some kid off teh street for a web app?
Save yourself $15.30 by buying the book here: Pro PHP Security. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%! That's a total savings of $15.77, or 35.58%!
Do not use global variables and claim tha you are an experienced php developer.. Unless you fell liek having yoru server compromised and everyone laughing at your sorry ass.. And avoid web app software that does, RadBids comes to mind..
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
I'm guessing you mean this?
http://www.htdp.org/
The radscripts moron doesn't know how to program, he's a real estate agent. He just pays the least possible to the lowest common denominator "programmers" he can find. Not suprisingly, you end up with a horrible mess. Although I guess the unreadable code does help hide the fact that its all got backdoors and phone-home treats hidden in it.
I would say that as a language (talking about the syntax) I prefer php over ruby and python
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
You are either not a professional programmer or a troll or both. PHP is the best available language if what you need is a simple way of creating dynamic web pages that handle database access. One sees so many people making so many claims about Ruby this or Ruby that, but have you ever tried to compare both languages? Forget closures and block parameters, you don't need that to create a dynamic web site. What you need is a simple syntax that works well with existing editors and code management tools, and PHP provides that. Using a database abstraction library such as Adodb and a good development framework, such as phpGroupWare, creating simple applications is faster in PHP than in any other language. And easier to maintain, too.
Of course, if what you want is to create a theoretical study on some esoteric programming task, by all means use your precious lambdas and closures or whatever resources you have in Ruby or Scheme, but if you need to keep a team of junior programmers chugging out simple enterprise applications you should choose PHP, the tool that gets the task done.
have you looked at this?
http://wiki.cc/php/PhpGACL
i haven't implemented it, but i have filed it for a future perusing.
Would be nice if people with similar tips could post some follow ups to parent.
Other books, albeit not free (to my knowledge):
-Design patterns : elements of reusable object-oriented software, Erich Gamma, ISBN: 0201633612
-Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, Martin Fowler, ISBN: 0321127420
Would really enjoy some more free information.
Would you use Linux Apache MySQL PHP vs ASP.net IIS and MS SQL?
While I do use PHP, I don't use it enough so that it poses a large security risk (I only really use it for includes, EXIF tag reading and browser detection). However I have still had my concerns about various aspects of it, such as the fact that it logs failed includes to an error_log file on the server, and this is why I would consider looking into this certain book especially since I foresee myself extending my PHP knowledge and usage in the near future.
This is a rather well written review and the book sounds rather solid although I am turned off by the abundance of theory. When it comes to learning programming languages I really prefer a more hands-on approach. This is one of the reasons why I chose to study website design at TAFE (Technical and Further Education for all you non-Australians) instead of university. Of course you can just skip all the theory, but I am unsure whether the theory is a required prerequisite to the practical sections.
Also does this book deal with only PHP 5 or does it cover older versions of PHP? My host only has version 4.4.2 and I am aware that there are many differences between version 4 and 5, especially security wise.
There are several libraries from the PEAR project
= Authentication
Try this : http://pear.php.net/packages.php?catpid=1&catname
No doubt user's need to be very careful but you don't need a 528 page book to describe how to escape reserved characters in your input and sql. I can summerize what you need to do right here with one use case. The use case is accepting an HTML form text field input and using it in an SQL statement.
// pardon the horrible formatting, it's a ./ problem // Quote variable to make safe // Stripslashes // Quote if not integer
First, you trim() and strlen() to make sure you have something. Then you use ereg to validate the hell out of it. Then you use the following function:
function quote_smart($value)
{
if (get_magic_quotes_gpc()) {
$value = stripslashes($value);
}
if (!is_numeric($value)) {
$value = "'" . mysql_real_escape_string($value) . "'";
}
return $value;
}
to prep the input for inserting into the DB. Finally, you call that in conjuction with sprintf to build the SQL you're going to call like:
$sql = sprintf("SELECT * FROM acct WHERE name=%s", quote_smart($name));
This looks like a lot of work but in practice it's really not that bad. Also, every website must do this. It's not like there's something wrong with PHP. Some environments might abstract this stuff a little but frankly I'd rather do it explicitly so that I know exactly what's happening.
I noticed that the under the related links section here it has a link to the book for $40 bucks if you are a B&N member, which I am not so i tried Amazon. I found it was $29.96 there with free shipping.
-MS2k
lol! stfu n00b!
One Click Patent...
Actio personalis moritur cum persona. (Dead men don't sue)
If you work in PHP and you think that cleaning and escaping user input for SQL statements is all there is to writing and deploying secure code, then you are the person who most needs to study this book! I am just finishing up the last couple chapters myself and I agree with the positive review. I've been writing PHP code for money for a few years, and I picked up so much new information on the first read through that I believe a second will be in order soon. The book covers a very wide range of topics, providing good references for further reading where needed AND is just as useful for sysadmins as it is for developers. There is a lot of good stuff about maintaining secure and productive environments for development and production. I especially liked the introduction to using CLI PHP with PCNTL functions to set up an API for securely handling calls to system commands, with queuing, batch processing, etc. One thing not mentioned in the review is that the book is pretty heavily focused on PHP in the *nix/Apache environment -- if you're running on Windows, say, a lot of the provided details won't apply for you. Still recommended reading though; it's just something to be aware of.
The Free Software community decided years ago that Amazon was not a threat, and GNU ended its boycott. Get with the times.
Scary thought. If you are implementing encryption (or any security measure, for that matter), the last thing you should be in is hurry.
There is no such thing as good luck. There is only misfortune and its occasional absence.
Nice that somebody finally wrote a book about security for PHP, but I wish they wouldn't use SELECT * FROM in code examples without at least explaining it's pitfalls.
http://www.parseerror.com/sql/select*isevil.html
for those that don't what I'm talking about.
I think you just showed us why you need more than five sentences to describe PHP security.
For one thing, you're not protecting yourself from URL-encoded strings.
And since PHP doesn't yet support bind-variables (prepared statements) natively, looking at PEAR::DB is a good idea; it saves you the hassle of quoting and whatnot.
You're also not dealing with the problem of XSS, since you've failed to deal with output to screen.
You are, in fact, not dealing with anything that's not related to MySQL.
Backslashes don't escape anything in sqlite, I think you must mean PDO::quote? See also prepared statements and remember that ereg functions are being depreciated in favour of PCRE (faster). ctype functions perform much better, it's rare you actually need to do a regex aside from the occassional complex string. Then there's the abuse of regex for parsers, which should be taken care of by a decent PHP parser generator hitting PEAR sometine soon ;-)
Think you need to wake-up, since PHP 5 there is the PDO extension set which supports lots of DBs and there is also the MySQL(i) extension which stands for "improved" that has prepared statements. But you are right that PHP security doesn't hold in 5 lines, it's a matter of getting something generic and right once and for all and propagate that in the tutorials to the noobs that start using it every day.
Many people just use PHP because it's popular and because they can't be bothered to use anything else. Which is a shame, because it doesn't deserve to be, and many people should be much better than that.
I remember (ah, memories) when I discovered PHP. I thought it was brilliant. I could write dynamic web pages! Wow! I had variables, and for loops, and while loops, and all sorts. It was amazing! Then I got a database up and running, and could actually make a site, o frabjous day, calloo, callay! This was back when PHP was all I knew, apart from BASIC, which isn't saying much.
I was so impressed with what I could be doing with PHP that I overlooked all the things I didn't like. I didn't understand why the function naming was so inconsistent. Why sometimes my program couldn't see its variables. Heck, I was using hosting from Lycos Tripod, which was a complete pile of gibs, but it was worth it 'cause I could make dynamic web sites, and it was good.
We were happy, PHP and I. Why should I go and learn another language when PHP was accomplishing what I wanted just fine, thanks?
The answer is that I was lazy. Yes, I'm admitting that I was a big lazy fat-ass, to use a stupid term. I couldn't be bothered to learn another language, even though there were plenty out there. I thought that PHP was the best language there was. In the end, though, I gave in and dabbled in Python and Ruby, then gave up and went back to PHP again, then really gave in this time and went to Ruby for web development. (Then Rails came along... which was nice, though I'm not fond)
These days, I look at PHP and go "bleh". While it was alright to keep looking at the docs when I was learning the language, it's not right if I keep having to look at them several years later to find out what function to use. I look at some of the 'features' and wonder what the hell they were thinking. PHP is so inconsistent that I wonder if the coders talked to each other as much as the Slashdot editors do. (By the way, I don't see what's so special about the PHP docs. Sure, it's nice that they exist, but pydoc and perldoc and ri beat them any day)
Y'see, I'm done with PHP now. While it was nice of it to help me get started on web programming, I realised that it wasn't the only thing out there, and learning Ruby has improved my hacking ability by great amounts.
Even if you're 100% in love with PHP right now, please take the time to learn something else. Python and Ruby are popular for the right reasons these days. It doesn't matter what you learn: toss a coin, use what your favourite Slashdotter uses; they're both better than PHP and can both be used to make web sites with. Maybe you'll like one of them. They'll teach you new ways of doing things, and make you question the old ways, such as why you have to use for loops instead of iterating over a range. If not, learn one anyway. It'll do you good.
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
Okay, I didn't consider these to be "native" when I wrote it, but I can see how you might want to consider them "native", and I didn't think it prudent to mention database-specific interfaces.
My recommendation for PEAR::DB is because it supports emulation of prepared statements for databases that don't support it natively, such as MySQL versions older than 4.1.
But I see now that I should've recommended PEAR::MDB2 instead; that was a bad lapse on my part, since PEAR::DB isn't actively maintained anymore.
Choose two.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.