This book is organized into five parts.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.