The core PHP language features are based on the support of powerful structured language “C” as well as the support of object oriented programming. With the use of standard and optional extension modules, a PHP application can interact with a database such as MySQL or PostgreSQL. End users or programmers can write their own PHP extension modules in C—for example, to provide a PHP interface to the functions in an existing code library. A lot of bundled packages for PHP and MySQL is available nowadays. We are about to take Windows Apache MySQL PHP (WAMP) as one of the packages to implement the web programming.
This book is a basic guide to the PHP language learners. When readers finish this book, they will know how the PHP language works, how to use the many powerful extensions that come standard with PHP, and how to design and build their basic PHP web applications.
Scope of this Book – The foremost important users of this book are the most energetic young students of various disciplines. Some students are well versed in programming and some others are well versed in website designing. This book aims at focusing both kinds of students to have a basic idea of PHP and its role in modern web programming. This book does work on the basics of HTML.
Organization of this Book – This book is arranged in manner how a layman could easily understand the basics of PHP without having any background knowledge of programming language, so a reader can read it from beginning to end, or jump around to the topics of interest. The book is divided into eight chapters as follows:
Chapter 1 gives details about PHP, its history and gives a lightning-fast overview of what is possible with PHP programs. It also gives a concise guide to PHP program elements such as identifiers, data types, operators, and flow-control statements.
Chapter 2 presents an overview of HTML, requirement for HTML, basic HTML tags and advanced HTML tags of Frames and Forms. This chapter also covers the input tag in detail with its role in web programming.
Chapter 3 describes some basic knowledge about functions, including scope, parameter lists and types of functions. Also this chapter covers the PHP’s object oriented features such as class, objects, constructor, destructor, inheritance, and method overriding.
Chapter 4 describes advanced web programming basics such as cookies, sessions, HTTP Headers and embedding external files in PHP.
Chapter 5 presents the possible operations with PHP files and directories.
Chapter 6 gives an introduction about MySQL and its need to modern web programming as well as functions used in PHP to connect with MySQL database . This chapter also speaks about some of the important MySQL predefined functions and about Joins with example for all concepts.
Chapter 7 illustrates case studies on applications of PHP and MySQL.
Finally, Chapter 8 presents a set of illustrative programs for easier understanding.
Contents :
1. PHP Variables, Operators and Control Structures
2. HTML — The Basics
3. Introduction to PHP Functions and Object Oriented Programming
4. Advanced Concepts in PHP
5. PHP Files
6. MySQL Database
7. Case Studies
8. Appendices
9. References
