The fastest route to true PHP mastery!

So...you've been asked to pitch in on a PHP project...starting now. Or maybe one's on the horizon. Or maybe you need to get real PHP skills onto your résumé. You've done web stuff. Maybe used other scripting languages. Now you want to get productive with PHP, fast.

Welcome. We wrote this book for you. We'll leverage what you already know, so you'll go further, faster than you ever expected.

You'll get the real nuts and bolts, not theory or hooey. You'll learn through dozens of focused examples: tested for reliability, crafted for clarity, easy to adapt for your own projects.

Need specific solutions? This book's modular, high-efficiency format delivers them—instantly. Award-winning author Steven Holzner draws on his unparalleled experience teaching programming: No other PHP guide covers this much, this well, this quickly. Dig in, get started, get results—today!

• All you need to succeed with PHP in Linux or Windows

• Master core concepts: operators, flow control, strings, arrays, functions, and more

• Learn essential web techniques: cookies, session management, automated email, FTP, and more

• Use PHP 5's object model and object-oriented techniques

• Efficiently handle text boxes, buttons, and other HTML controls

• Create web forms, validate user input, and check browsers

• Work with MySQL and other databases

Includes concise PHP 5 language and functional references!

All the book's programming examples are available for download on the companion web site.

Spring Into is a new series of fast-paced tutorials from Addison-Wesley. Each book in the series is designed to bring you up-to-speed quickly. Complex topics and technologies are reduced to their core components, and each component is treated with remarkable efficiency in one- or two-page spreads. Just the information you need to begin working...now! And because the books are example-rich and easy to navigate, you'll find that they make great on-the-job references after you've mastered the basics.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 11 Ratings

Comprehensive and wonderfully written! - 2005-08-01
Reviewer Rating:
I've been programming in c/c++ and java for 6 years now and recently at work was asked to give a facelift to our intranet site. Without this book I do not think I would have been able to complete all the requested task in such a short amount of time.

This is probably one of the most well written php books I've ever read. Steven Holzner did a perfect job bringing the nuts and bolts of PHP to the world in such a clear and concise manner. The books pace is perfect for a newbie into the PHP world and though technical is very easy to read and understand. Through this book I was able to give our intranet site an overhaul and add features to it in no time, leaving me plenty of time to focus on other projects.

If you need a quick jump start into PHP programming look no further.

Watch out-typos Galore! - 2006-08-23
Reviewer Rating:
I'm new to PHP, and chose this book because I had good results with "Spring Into: HTML & CSS". The chunks are clear and concise with lots of examples. I've learned a lot from this book, but keep having trouble with errors in the script. After going over (and over) the code, I started realizing that it was typos in the book coding itself-not user error! Being new to PHP, constant typos make the learning process more drawn out and frustrating! I'm ready to get a different book so I don't have to struggle through the typos (at half way into the book, I've found over a dozen). There are some good things to get out of this book; but is it worth the frustration?

Hands Down - 2005-12-30
Reviewer Rating:
This book is amazing. Its so easy as a training guide and resource. I used a 3M highlighter with Tabs and continue to use this book as a reference. This book goes through Baby steps to configuring things to get you launched into your own PHP applications.

I've read the PHP 4 Bible which I would rate a 2. This book 'Spring Into PHP' is honestly the best PHP book I've purchased. My other recommendation is SitePoints PHP & MySQL book, though I would still choose this book for beginner to novice over any.

Clear, concise and thorough. I love it. - 2009-06-27
Reviewer Rating:
After reading mixed reviews of every PHP teaching book I walked into Borders to have a look for myself. Having never heard of this "Spring Into" series, I found this on the shelves and chose it over the 20 other choices and I am very happy with my purchase.

What I like:
- It's small enough (~330 pages compared to 600+ pages in many other books) that I don't feel completely overwhelmed. I'm confident that I can get through this entire book (I'm on page 80 in day 2) in just a few weeks and will have a solid understanding of PHP.
- It's example based. Every new section gives the theoretical format of the code followed by a clear example. This helps me learn.
- Sections are short. Each new concept is covered in only 1-2 pages. I really feel like I'm making progress quickly.
- It builds in small pieces. I previously went through beginning PHP tutorials at w3schools.com, which were fine, but often left me confused and frustrated since I have no programming background. So far this book has explained every new concept linearly and clearly.
- The price. At $30 retail, I was happy to buy this book over some thick $40+ PHP guides.

That's it! I finally feel like I'm about to get a grip on this seemingly abstruse language.

Good Introduction to PHP. - 2008-09-16
Reviewer Rating:
I have been looking for a good introductory book on PHP for quite sometime now. "Spring into PHP' does give a good foundation on the subject for beginners. The basic concepts such as, operators, stings, emails, and functions are all there. Most of the other PHP books I have seen go right to more advanced concepts without introducing the basics needed to complete more advanced tasks. "Spring into PHP" is a good book if you need to learn PHP fast, but don't expect to learn the finer details of PHP. This book is probably just designed to give you a basic understanding of the PHP so you can go into a PHP file and have an idea what is going on. Even though the book illustrates the basic concepts of PHP very effectively, I wish there were more real-world examples. The chapter on communicating with a database is fine in teaching the concepts of adding, deleting, and inserting information into a database. However, the examples given for manipulating information in the database are given right in the code. In the real world you would enter the database information into text boxes. Overall, I wish some of the samples in this book stressed more interactivity.
Still, this is a great book for beginners who have little or no experience with PHP. It is certainly a better introductory learning tool than those huge PHP manuals that can have up to 1000 pages, which is great for professionals to reference, but not for beginners to reference. For this reason, I believe "Spring into PHP" would be an effective text book for an introductory php class.

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