Get past all the hype about PHP and dig into the real power of this language. This book explores the most useful features of PHP and how they can speed up the web development process, and explains why the most commonly used PHP elements are often misused or misapplied. You’ll learn which parts add strength to object-oriented programming, and how to use certain features to integrate your application with databases.

Written by a longtime member of the PHP community, PHP: The Good Parts is ideal for new PHP programmers, as well as web developers switching from other languages.

Become familiar with PHP’s basic syntax, variables, and datatypes

Learn how to integrate the language with web pages

Understand how to use strings, arrays, and PHP’s built-in functions

Discover the advantages of using PHP as an object-oriented language

Explore how PHP interacts with databases, such as SQLite and MySQL

Learn input- and output-handling best practices to prevent security breaches

Peter MacIntyre lives and works in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. He has over 20 years of experience in the information technology industry, primarily in the area of software development.

Peter’s technical skill set includes several client/server tools and relational database systems such as PHP, PowerBuilder, Visual Basic, Active Server Pages, and CA-Visual Objects.

Peter is certified by ZEND Corporation on PHP 4.x and has contributed writing material for Using Visual Objects (Que Corp.), Using PowerBuilder 5 (Que Corp.), ASP.NET Bible (Wiley Pub.), and Web Warrior Survey on Web Development Languages (Course Technology). Most recently he has co-authored the Zend Studio for Eclipse Developer’s Guide – Addison-Wesley.

Peter is a former contributing editor and author to the on-line and in-print magazine called php|architect (www.phparch.com). He has also spoken several times at North American and International computer conferences including CA-World in New Orleans, USA; CA-TechniCon in Cologne, Germany; and CA-Expo in Melbourne, Australia.