Contents at a Glance
Chapter 1: What Is PHP-And Why Should I Care?
Chapter 2: Getting Ready to Work with PHP
Chapter 3: How to Write PHP Scripts
Chapter 4: Lightening Your Workload with Includes
Chapter 5: Bringing Forms to Life
Chapter 6: Uploading Files
Chapter 7: Using PHP to Manage Files
Chapter 8: Generating Thumbnail Images
Chapter 9: Pages That Remember: Simple Login and Multipage Forms
Chapter 10: Getting Started with MySQL
Chapter 11: Connecting to MySQL with PHP and SQL
Chapter 12: Creating a Dynamic Online Gallery
Chapter 13: Managing Content
Chapter 14: Format ting Text and Dates
Chapter 15: Pulling Data from Multiple Tables
Chapter 16: Managing Multiple Database Tables
Chapter 17: Authenticating Users with a Database
One of the first things most people want to know about PHP is what the initials stand for. Then they wish they had never asked. Officially, PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. Its an ugly name that gives the impression that its strictly for nerds or propellerheads. Nothing could be further from the truth.
PHP is a scripting language that brings websites to life in the following ways:
Sending feedback from your website directly to your mailbox
Uploading files through a web page
Generating thumbnails from larger images
Reading and writing to files
Displaying and updating information dynamically
Using a database to display and store information
Making websites searchable
And much more . . .
By reading this book, youll be able to do all that. PHP is easy to learn; its platform-neutral, so the same code runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux; and all the software you need to develop with PHP is open source and therefore free. Several years ago, there was a lighthearted debate on the PHP General mailing list (http://news.php.net/php.general) about changing what PHP stands for. Among the suggestions were Positively Happy People and Pretty Happy Programmers. The aim of this book is to help you put PHP to practical use—and in the process understand what makes PHP programmers so happy.