PHP 5 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 672 pages
• Published by: Apress September 23, 2005
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1590595092
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1590595091
• Book Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.5 inches
• Weighs: 2.3 pounds

Reader Reviews
I am a big fan of 'recipe' books. They collect solutions to a variety of common problems into a single volume for easy reference, often times pointing out features in an extensive language environment that were missed when first learned. This book is no exception. I had been coding PHP for close to a year when I picked up this book. I found most of the coding and examples to be fairly familiar, but forcing myself to read through ever page I have expanded my coding with several standard functions that I had no use for when first learning the language (and thus had forgotten about). The writing style is very readable, and the code is targeted at the beginning to intermediate PHP coder. Beginners to PHP will benefit from reading through the entire book; those with more experience are better off skimming the first half of the book and reading the latter sections. The topics covered are fairly complete and include: arrays, strings, imaging, database, files and web forms. I would have liked a more detailed coverage of XML and SOAP, but the basics are provided for these technologies. If you are an experienced PHP coder you may gain something from this book (like I did), but you would probably get just as much by browsing the official PHP site's function list to refresh your memory of what is available. My recommendation, for PHP beginners, is that this book coupled with Jason Gilmore's Beginning PHP and MySQL makes an excellent pair to learn PHP and should have you up to speed in no time. Add Matt Zandstra's PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, and Practice and you have a fairly complete PHP library suitable for an experienced programmer's reference shelf. P-) Comment | | (Report this)