PHP 4 Developer's Guide

By: Blake Schwendiman

*PHP--a server-side, embedded HTML scripting language--is used to develop dynamic Web content. * Hot language--Red Hat and Mitsubishi are among the companies that use PHP as their Web development... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0072127317
• ISBN13: 9780072127317
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 800 Pages
• Weight: 3.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 7.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Definately one of the better PHP books I own

I've been coding PHP for a few years now, and I find this book to be a very good reference to keep at the desk. It covers a broad range of topics, so if I need to brush up on something or need quick info on something, I turn to this book first. Recommended.

A good documentation of PHP function.

This book covers almost every function available in PHP besides some good implementation of PHP features such as sessions, forms manipulation and file transfer. However, this book is lack of examples and looks like a dictionary. You will know the purpose of each function, but no description about how to use it. Experienced users will find this book useful. For beginners or intermediary, you should combine this book with PHP Developer's Cookbook to gain the best benefits from this book. However, despite of its disadvantages, it still one of the best PHP book available this day.

For Serious PHP4 Developers

If you are a serious PHP4 developer you will get plenty of long term benefit from this book. The author is really clear with complex topics and his generous samples of code examples are well written. Although the book is 775 pages, the developers guide chapters are all covered in the first 342 pages. There is a 391 page appendix of alphabetically listed and defined PHP functions which can come in handy, a listing of predefined variables and constants, and an appendix on build options. I found the chapters on code reuse and separating html from php quite useful. More database coverage would have been nice, and, like a lot of technical books theses days, I thought it was a little over priced. Overall, this is one of the better books on the subject that is available, and I do highly recommend it.

Finally - a Serious PHP Reference Guide!

This is the first serious PHP Developer Guide and reference book that we have used! Well written with an easy to use presentation and with sufficient depth to remain useful well into the future.We have used PHP3/4 on our own LAN and Web servers for more than two years now and have relied upon the PHP online documentation as well as several popular print books (writing our own when necessary). For the most part we have been disappointed in the printed material. But Blake Schwendiman has finally put together a useful book for the serious developer!The style and format make it easy to use for both the novice wishing to learn PHP 4, and the experienced developer in need of a useful reference on the shelf. We recommend it for both!Our only small disappointment was the single chapter devoted to data base support. Data base support is PHP's most powerful feature in our opinion and we expected a bit more. That said, this is a PHP Developer's Guide and not a data base reference, and the information given is sufficient to get you up and running.Computer developer books by nature quickly become 'dated'. But for the serious developer, this one will serve a long and useful life! Highly recommended!