PHP 5 Power Programming book at 32% off list from Amazon!!
In this book, PHP 5's co-creator and two leading PHP developers show you how to make the most of PHP 5's industrial-strength enhancements in any project -- no matter how large or complex. Their unique insights and realistic examples illuminate PHP 5's new object model, powerful design patterns, improved XML Web services support, and much more. Whether you're creating Web applications, extensions, packages, or shell scripts -- or migrating PHP 4 code -- here are high-powered solutions you won't find anywhere else.
Lots of great information for programming in PHP 5.
Programming PHP book at 30% off list from Amazon!!
Programming PHP is a comprehensive guide to PHP, a simple yet powerful language for creating dynamic web content. The book is co-authored by the creator of PHP, Rasmus Lerdorf, so you'll learn not only how to program in PHP, but how to do it well. This authoritative book explains the language syntax and programming techniques of PHP 4, the latest version of the language, in a clear and concise manner.
Programming PHP goes into detail on fundamental topics such as functions, strings, arrays, and objects, with numerous examples that illustrate both correct usage and good PHP style. Programming PHP also presents application development techniques for building modern web sites. You'll learn how to process web forms, handle session data, interact with relational databases such as MySQL, and create dynamic images and PDF files. The book also covers advanced topics like security, manipulating XML data, and writing your own C-language extensions to PHP.
Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL offers web developers a mixture of theoretical and practical information on creating web database applications.
Using PHP and MySQL, the book offers detailed information on designing relational databases and on web application architecture, both of which will be useful to readers who have never dealt with these issues before. The book also introduces Hugh and Dave's Online Wines, a complete (but fictional) online retail site that allows users to browse, search a database, add items to a shopping cart, manage their membership, and purchase wines. Using this site as an example, the book shows you how to implement searching and browsing, store user data, validate user input, manage transactions, and maintain security.
If you want to build small to medium-scale web database applications that can run on modest hardware and process more than a million hits a day from users, this book will show you how.
I'm a big fan of Wiki's, those collaboration friendly sites that allow non-HTML savvy users to work on web pages and documents. My favorite of this genre is PmWiki�. The installation is straightforward, doesn't require a database, is in active development, and the mailing list includes lots of helpful folks (reminds me of the good old days of Usenet...sigh). Here's the link to get started with PmWiki.
Looking to separate PHP programming from HTML and keep those grubby designers from ruining your code? One of the more useful templating engines I've discovered is Smarty. You can let your designers work with their files, and keep the PHP code hidden away. It also converts the files into native PHP scripts, so there's no "performance penalty" for using it.
One of the most frequent questions I get asked is "What tool do you recommend for editing CSS pages?". Far and above the best one is TopStyle Pro, from the same person who created the popular HomeSite editor. Follow this link to receive 10% off the purchase price.
The creators of PHP and keepers of the language. Site includes comprehensive documentation, source downloads, etc.
Lot's of information on PHP, including their optimizer.
Lots of great 'How To' articles on various PHP concepts. Good place for beginners to start.
A good set of articles introducing various PHP concepts
PHP Tutorials, scriptlets, quick reference, plus they are the keepers of phpMyAdmin, a very cool web app written in PHP to make managing mySQL databases much easier.
Has some great info on PHP, including PHP and mySQL tutorials.
A very PHP/mySQL friendly host. For the dirt-cheap price of $7.50 a month, you get a lightweight Linux web account with access to both PHP and mySQL. Plus, their innovative web-based admin interface gives you complete control over creating mySQL databases and assigning users.
PHP Essentials
Great beginning book on PHP. Includes PHP 4.x. First half deals with
the basics, including installation, database interfacing, session
management, etc. Second half deals with an example commerce website,
creating a shopping cart application. Excellent PHP book to start your
development with.
PHP 4 Bible
Part Cookbook, part primer. A good
reference book. Chapters on all major
concepts of PHP, plus more obscure ones
like 'avoiding common gotchas' and using
good PHP coding techniques..
Teach Yourself MySQL in 21 Days
Great primer for using mySQL, the preferred
database for PHP. Really goes into depth on
field types, as well as how to use the command-line
administration tools.
Web Application Development in PHP 4.0
A more advanced PHP 4.0 book. Includes discussions
of advanced syntax, XML apps, session management,
WDDX, and more. A good book when you're ready
for more in-depth information on PHP concepts and 'inner
workings'.