Page 30 - Beginning PHP 5.3

Introduction
❑ How to install and configure the PHP engine
❑ Language fundamentals, such as variables, loops, strings, and arrays
❑ Functions, and the concept of modular code
❑ How to develop object - oriented applications
❑ Creating Web forms, and PHP scripts to handle them

❑ Interacting with browser cookies and creating sessions to store visitor data
❑ File and directory handling
❑ Writing database - driven applications
❑ Dealing with dates and times, the Web server environment, and email messages
❑ Creating graphics with PHP
❑ The ins and outs of regular expressions
❑ How to read, write, and create XML documents with PHP
❑ Good programming practices, including coding standards, documentation, security issues, error
handling, code separation, and code testing
❑ How to write PHP scripts that can run from the command line

Also, as you'd imagine, this book covers the new features added to PHP in version 5.3. However, if
you're still using an older version of PHP, don't panic -- the vast majority of the book applies to all
versions of PHP.

How This Book Is Structured

The chapters in this book are laid out in a logical order, explaining basic programming concepts first,
then building on those concepts in later chapters when covering more advanced topics. As a general
rule, each chapter builds on the knowledge gained in previous chapters, so you shouldn ’ t need to jump
around the book too much. However, if you ’ re already familiar with some of the basic ideas of PHP,
you ’ ll find you can easily dip into later chapters if you ’ re looking for specific information.

Each chapter contains a couple of exercises at the end to test your knowledge and expand on some of the
ideas presented in the chapter. You can find solutions to the exercises in Appendix A.

This book is split into three main parts. Part I, “ Getting Up and Running with PHP, ” introduces PHP in
more detail, and walks you through installing PHP and writing a simple PHP script. Part II, “ Learning
the Language, ” teaches you the fundamentals of the PHP language — essential reading for building PHP
scripts. Finally, Part III, “ Using PHP in Practice, ” shows you how to create real - world PHP applications,
covering a wide range of concepts and including lots of useful example scripts.

Here ’ s a chapter - by - chapter breakdown of the book to help you decide how best to approach it.

Chapter 1 introduces you to PHP. You see how PHP compares to other Web programming languages,
look at how PHP has evolved over the years, and briefly explore the new features in PHP version 5.3.

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