How This Book Is Organized
This book is organized into five parts.
Part I: PHP Foundations
The lessons in Part I introduce the basic building blocks of the PHP language:Lesson 1: Getting to Know PHP.
This chapter introduces you to what PHP is all about and gives some simple examples to show how PHP is used inside a web page.Lesson 2: Variables.
This chapter explains how you assign values to variables and demonstrates some simple expressions.Lesson 3: Flow Control.
This chapter examines the conditional and looping constructs that allow you to control the flow of a PHP script.Lesson 4: Functions.
This chapter explains how you can modularize and reuse a frequently used section of code as a function.
Part II: Working with Data
The lessons in Part II examine in more detail the different types of data that can be manipulated by PHP:Lesson 5: Working with Numbers.
This chapter gives more detailed examples of the numeric manipulation you can perform in PHP.Lesson 6: Working with Strings.
This chapter examines the powerful set of string functions that PHP provides.Lesson 7: Working with Arrays.
This chapter explains how arrays work and examines the PHP functions that can manipulate this powerful data type.Lesson 8: Regular Expressions.
This chapter shows how to perform complex string manipulation by using powerful regular expressions.Lesson 9: Working with Dates and Times.
This chapter examines how to use date and time values in a PHP script.Lesson 10: Using Classes.
This chapter introduces you to object-oriented PHP and examines how you define and access a class in a script.
Part III: The Web Environment
The lessons in Part III deal with using PHP specifically in the web environment:Lesson 11: Processing HTML Forms.
This chapter shows how you use PHP to process user-submitted input from an HTML form.Lesson 12: Generating Dynamic HTML.
This chapter examines some techniques for creating HTML components on-the-fly from PHP.Lesson 13: Form Validation.
This chapter examines some techniques for validating user-submitted input from an HTML form.Lesson 14: Cookies and Sessions.
This chapter shows how to pass data between pages by using PHP sessions and how to send cookies to a user's browser.Lesson 15: User Authentication.
This chapter examines some techniques for validating user-submitted input from an HTML form.Lesson 16: Communicating with the Web Server.
This chapter looks at ways in which PHP can interact with a web server.
Part IV: Using Other Services from PHP
Part IV looks at how PHP can communicate with external programs and services:Lesson 17: Filesystem Access.
This chapter examines the PHP functions that enable you to access the filesystem.Lesson 18: Host Program Execution.
This chapter examines the PHP functions that enable you to execute programs on the host system.Lesson 19: Using a MySQL Database.
This chapter shows how to use a MySQL database for data storage and retrieval from PHP.Lesson 20: Database Abstraction.
This chapter explains how you can access a database through an abstraction layer to make scripts more portable.Lesson 21: Running PHP on the Command Line.
This chapter shows how you can use PHP as a powerful shell scripting language.Lesson 22: Error Handling and Debugging.
This chapter discusses some techniques for finding and fixing bugs in scripts.
Part V: Configuring and Extending PHP
The final part of the book deals with PHP administration:Lesson 23: PHP Configuration.
This chapter explains some of the popular configuration options that can be set at runtime to change the behavior of PHP.Lesson 24: PHP Security.
This chapter discusses security issues in PHP scripts and shows how you can use Safe Mode on a shared web server.Lesson 25: Using PEAR.
This chapter introduces the freely available classes that are available in the PHP Extension and Application Repository.