"Programming PHP," 2nd Edition, is the authoritative guide to PHP 5 and is filled with the unique knowledge of the creator of PHP (Rasmus Lerdorf) and other PHP experts. When it comes to creating websites, the PHP scripting language is truly a red-hot property. In fact, PHP is currently used on more than 19 million websites, surpassing Microsoft's ASP .NET technology in popularity. Programmers love its flexibility and speed; designers love its accessibility and convenience.

As the industry standard book on PHP, all of the essentials are covered in a clear and concise manner. Language syntax and programming techniques are coupled with numerous examples that illustrate both correct usage and common idioms. With style tips and practical programming advice, this book will help you become not just a PHP programmer, but a "good" PHP programmer. "Programming PHP, Second Edition" covers everything you need to know to create effective web applications with PHP. Contents include: Detailed information on the basics of the PHP language, including data types, variables, operators, and flow control statements Chapters outlining the basics of functions, strings, arrays, and objects Coverage of common PHP web application techniques, such as form processing and validation, session tracking, and cookies Material on interacting with relational databases, such as MySQL and Oracle, using the database-independent PEAR DB library and the new PDO Library Chapters that show you how to generate dynamic images, create PDF files, and parse XML files with PHP Advanced topics, such as creating secure scripts, error handling, performance tuning, and writing your own C language extensions to PHP A handy quickreference to all the core functions in PHP and all the standard extensions that ship with PHP

Praise for the first edition:

"If you are just getting into the dynamic Web development world or you are considering migrating from another dynamic web product to PHP, "Programming PHP" is the book of choice to get you up, running, and productive in a short time."

--Peter MacIntrye, eWeek

"I think this is a great book for programmers who want to start developing dynamic websites with PHP. It gives a detailed overview of PHP, lots of valuable tips, and a good sense of PHP's strengths."

--David Dooling, Slashdot.org

PHP is far more than a cult language or open-source icon. It's a remarkably capable language that's well integrated with lots of technologies--notably mSQL and MySQL database servers--and quite easy to learn. Programming PHP helps you up the PHP learning curve, very nearly guaranteeing that you'll find in its pages an example that illustrates every fundamental aspect of the language and its most important extension modules. Plus, there's some cool advanced stuff, like recipes for manipulating images, working with Extensible Markup Language (XML) content, and generating Adobe Acrobat (PDF) files. Rasmus Lerdorf invented PHP and quarterbacks its ongoing evolution, so there's little question of the content's authority.

The authors use a Talmudic style to explore PHP's capabilities and explain them to their readers, meaning that they like to present code and commentary in close formation, with each enhancing the other. Typically, they'll present a capability generically and show the relevant code. Then they'll dig into variations on the theme, calling attention to required code alterations as they go. This is a book about PHP itself, so practically no attention is paid to PHP Builder or other development tools. Regardless, this book will help you solve programming challenges with PHP, and enable you to write efficient, attractive code. --David Wall

Topics covered: The PHP programming language, for people who are coming to PHP with a bit of programming experience in other languages or who want to expand their existing PHP knowledge beyond the basics. Sections deal with the core language, as well as HTTP session management, database connectivity (to MySQL and Oracle, as well as with PHP Extension and Application Repository--PEAR), graphics file manipulation, XML parsing, and PDF creation. There are instructions for building a PHP extension library in C, as well as a function reference and guide to existing extensions.