PHP and MySQL Web Development, 2nd Edition

honestpuck writes with the short review below of Sams' PHP and MySQL Web Development, 2nd Edition, which he says is aimed at "someone who has programmed before needs to know about both PHP and MySQL," and a good book for the intended audience. Read on for his thoughts on the book.

PHP and MySQL Web Development
author	Luke Welling & Laura Thomson
pages	815
publisher	Sams
rating	9
reviewer	Tony Williams
ISBN	067232525X
summary	New edition to for an excellent guide to PHP and MySQL

There is a good review of the first edition of this book here on Slashdot. For this second edition, I would add that Welling and Thomson have updated extensively and improved slightly a book that may well be the classic text on the topic.

PHP and MySQL are probably the most pervasive add-ons to Apache web servers across the web. Certainly they are both easy to acquire and common on a large range of web hosting systems, including several extremely low-cost ones. They also fit together extremely well.

This book demonstrates just how well. It starts out with a quick course in PHP (OK, 160 pages is hardly quick but it seems to move along at a good pace), follows it up with a brief look at MySQL before a short digression on E-commerce leads into building authentication and secure systems with the two tools (a marvelous place to start when you're thinking about commercial-grade web systems).

Then, after some more on PHP, the final section covers some large projects, a shopping cart, email service, mailing list manager and web forums. The final chapter in this section is new for this edition and covers XML and SOAP.

The new edition has been updated extensively. All scripts work now perfectly in PHP 4.3

I like this book a great deal. Even after a fair amount of time with the previous edition I still find it useful. It is well structured for finding what you need, well written, and has few typos. (Though there are still some, including ones in code examples -- when will authors learn to work straight off running code into the manuscript and keep godforsaken editors away from it? Brian Kernighan managed it twenty-five years ago.)

This would not be the best book if you had little programming experience, nor would it be the best book if you had a fair amount of PHP experience.

You will want to have some program design experience and preferably some experience with database design as these are given short shrift. The book also lacks examples and discussion of some of the less database intensive parts of PHP and some of the more obscure tasks you may need to perform. It covers what someone who has programmed before needs to know about both PHP and MySQL while informing on methods of using both to build practical and sturdy web applications. If that sounds like the book you want then I heartily recommend this volume to you.

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You can purchase PHP and MySQL Web Development from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Why not Online Documentation ?

You dont need a book to learn PHP and MySQL. There are plenty of tutorials out there for interfacing php and mysql in addition to all of the documentation the websites will provide. For any coders who already know a thing or two about coding, the book is a waste of money.

Re:Why not Online Documentation ?

The online manuals at mysql.com and php.net are hardly disorganised. Php.net is very good, each page of the manual has user anotations where people share experiences with pitfalls and handy tips. As for finding answers quickly, I like to have an introductory book to get a feel for the language and how it works but when searching for builtin functions, a search engine can't be beat.

Re:Why not Online Documentation ?

not to make myself out as a loser or anything, but most online tutorials explain the how, but not the why of the problem. When I first learned about interfacing the two languages, I made hundreds of code mistakes, and I could never find out why my code didn't work. No web tutorial tackled the task of debugging bad code, none explained what SQL was to me, it just said "do this, then do that". So, before you diss the book, look into the why of having a book, then critizise.

knowing the language vs knowing the ins and outs

I don't think I own a single PHP book. What I do for a living right now is code PHP+Mysql (specifically, e-commerce engine customization).

I never had a problem with stuff not working, but I did do a lot of things in ways that could have been done better. For example, not realizing at first that you could declare php functions with optional arguments (ie, function foo($x, $y=1) {}) cost me a lot of headache I didn't need. Puzzling my way through the behavior of php classes took some time, as these aren't particularly well documented (particularly variable scope in classes and methods, and the interaction between session tracking and classes).

In other words, I could have used a good 'tips and tricks' sort of book. Not basic syntax, but the sort of things you'd miss even if you got fairly far using the online docs.

The good and bad thing about PHP+Mysql is that it is a very powerful and flexible platform to develop on. But because it is SO flexible, it lets you make a LOT of mistakes. There's a big difference between a functional app, and a GOOD app.

Re:Why not Online Documentation ?

Have you ever tried to pull up online documentation in an airport in a third world country? Or how about on an airplane? Nothing sucks worse than being on an 11-hour flight and realizing that you don't know something that's going to halt your coding binge worse than having to change your laptop battery.

Or how about on a boardwalk in Southern California, trying to code something quick enough that the Mrs. doesn't get mad at you for interrupting the vacation?

I've been in these situations, and that's why I carry the first edition of this book. Well, I used to, when I was first getting into PHP/MySQL.

I'm not saying that online tutorials is not enough. I'm teaching a class in these technologies next semester, and I am requiring the students to use online references. There are just times that you do not have access to the web and must have some info.

Re:Why not Online Documentation ?

I disagree strongly. Online documentation tends to be inconsistent, poorly thought out and unclear.

Books tend to be clearer, better-researched and more authoritative. If you already know the technology well, you can sort out the online wheat from the chaff and get what you want rapidly. If not, you flail around a myriad of web pages looking for information that fits your needs.

This applies to my experience of PHP as well as other related experiences.

Of course there are exceptions to this, but my bookshelf grows and grows. Also, if online docs are so great, how come O'Reilly books still sell so well? They're hardly cheap...

previous version was good

The previous version was good.
I am sure we will be getting at least one copy of this for our office as some of the junior programmers use the books and we let them take them home.
me personally, I really only use php.net if I need to look up a function, but then I have been doing this for a long time and don't need to read about the how's and why's, just need the facts and what functions expect.
From my experience, seasoned php programmers usually have a browser open to php.net to look up functions and seldom have any PHP books.
again, however, for beginners this book series is good.

One reason why online docs are better than a book

I own this book, and it's a good one (it has a lot of examples, and the chapter on generating PDFs was interesting, for example). I'd actually recommend O'Reilly's Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL [oreilly.com], however. I think the example code is better, and it went into individual details of MySQL and PHP more. You're exactly right about one thing: once you've used either book for any length of time, they become obsolete. PHP moves pretty fast, and even small revs of MySQL can contain lots of new features. Both the PHP and MySQL web sites are excellent references which a book just cannot compete with, no matter how good it is.

An interesting side note: the MySQL people "stole" (Rasmus Lerdorf's words, not mine) php.net's webmaster. For a long time now, I've gotten very used to typing things like php.net/mysql_pconnect [php.net] in the location bar of my browser and getting redirected to the right page in the online docs. MySQL's new webmaster brought that feature with him, so you can do things like mysql.com/select [mysql.com] and get answers fast. (If you want to do this on your site, it's actually fairly simple. Check out lerdorf.com/tips.pdf [lerdorf.com]. Look midway through for a slide on the $PATH_INFO environment variable.)

The web sites obviate both books for all but beginners, IMO.

-B

Again... no best practices

I dont want to throw a wet blanket over all of this, but again, here's a LAMP book that perpetuates terrible PHP coding practices.

As a member of the PHP (and Perl) faithful, when are we gonna learn that books like these give the community and open source in general a bad name?

Maybe I'm out of line in criticizing this book, maybe I'm looking for a different book, but when we have a book that covers web development best practices along with learning about PHP, Mysql and so on, then I will be the first in line to recommend and purchase it.

Re:Again... no best practices

1. Checking any input from outside the program

2. Checking input

3. Checking input!!!

4. Separation of logic from HTML design. (templating)

I don't know how many times the company I work for now has been burned because a previous programmer never checked any input to his scripts, rather just blindly inserting it into the database.

PHP 5?

Does anyone know if this book would include information in regards to PHP5? I'm looking for syntax / usage as well as the realistic ability to implement php5 in a production environment.

backwards compat.

one of the problems with books like this is their lack of backwards compatibility. i used to have a safari subscription, and had this book for a while. 1st edition was very good. however, many hosting services still use 4.0.X. and for those places, that operate on thin margins, they see no reason to upgrade. it's not a cost issue, but an adminissue. i can't say that i blame them. so, books should also have some backwards compatibiltiy discussion. for instance: $_POST vs. $HTTP_POST_VARS. this will screw up lots of people. you will develop your site locally, mirror it, and then, "holy crap", it doesn't work."

Oh dear lord not again!

As someone aptly pointed out about seven PHP/MySQL book reviews ago: There are three things the world doesn't need more of - cars, people and "Developing webapps with PHP and MySQL" books.

I know nothing will stem the tide of these, for all intents and purposes, xeroxed books, but I can at least implore (nay, beg) the people here to please, please stop sending in inept reviews/advertisements for them. There is just no damn reason for it.

First Edition was quite good.

I picked up the first edition, not because I really needed to learn PHP (I was already comfortable with it), but so that I'd have something I could use as a reference. I have to say that I was EXTREMELY IMPRESSED with the first edition. It is actually my favorite programming book (out of maybe 30 that I've bought for school and fun). I like how the book progresses quickly through each chapter. And not quickly as in skipping over the details (like some other books out there), but in that they only present the info that you need, and encourage you to look up things in the online documentation for more detail. I also really liked the projects that they went through at the end of the book. It's nice to see practical applications for all of the things that the book went through. ... and for everyone who says it's only PHP and you can just use the online docs, well, I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly going to break out my laptop to do some reading on a city bus! ;)

All you need to know about MySQL

select * from tablename

As usual, this books is lacking on real database information because let's face it... 99% of MySQL users wouldn't know a database form a spreadsheet, and it shows. No triggers... no subselects, still?? Hell, if you don't really need a database, then there's nothing wrong with using an OLEDB connector to a CSV file.

What about Perl/MySQL or Perl/Postgres?

Being based on Perl/MySQL, how about a slashdot review of a book on Perl/MySQL?

For someone who has no programming experience, if you had a choice of only one book, which book would you recommend for Perl/MySQL or Perl/Postgres? I'm on an extremely tight budget, unemployed, yadda yadda...a book with examples, or that does several run-throughs of a working site setup would be appreciated.

A big tia!

php.net

While I haven't read this book or the previous edition. If you are wanting to learn the language and don't want to pay for the book, php.net [php.net] and phpbuilder.com [phpbuilder.com] are two of the best sites available. They post have good references and PHPbuilder has a very useful forum in case you get stuck.

Re:php.net

I've also found devshed.com has some userful tutorials for php and mysql, quite well done ones in fact. I have used examples from there in my production code.(Esp. the template info, saved me a lot of time and beautified my code a lot too)...

i18n

Someone needs to write books that address the need to deal with multiple language, bidi and related issues. PHP and MySQL can handle [issho.org] more than most people think, but one thing holding the non-Latin-1 development back is a rather chronic case of Latin1-centricity.

MySQL

If you're just starting in web development, don't use MySQL unless you have absolutely no choice. It will hurt you in long term.

When you first start out, you're happy that you can put data in and pull it back out. Then you find that your data gets inconsistent for some reason. To stop this happening, database designers put constraints on the data, and use transactions. If the job is done properly, it shouldn't be possible to insert inconsistent data, like a company address that doesn't belong to a company.

Unfortunately, if you chose to use MySQL at the beginning, you're now stuffed because it doesn't provide these features. What's worse, its SQL is rather non-standard, so you're going to have a problem moving to anything else. I know that people will think I'm trolling for Postgres [postgresql.org], but I'm not really. Use any database that supports this type of feature. There are two other open source databases which are worth a look: Firebird [sourceforge.net] and SAP DB [sapdb.org].

Re:MySQL

MySQL with InnoDB tables supports foreign key contrants and uses transactions. In fact, a site you may have heard a thing or two about [slashdot.org] uses MySQL with InnoDB tables.

what about PEAR and the PFC?

What will really allow PHP to compete head-on with ASP.NET and SharePoint is PEAR [php.net] and the PEAR Foundation Classes (PFC). A really good set of classes for web development means low-cost, robust web apps are on the way. You java gurus can eat your hearts out. The reviewer doesn't say if the book covers either of these topics, so hold off on your purchase until this becomes clear.

this is a great book

While I have been using php.net's examples and documentation, along with the available mysql information, when I bought the first edition of this book it opened up a whole new level of work for me. I mean, yeah, you can teach yourself php and mysql without any real trouble if you have a good head. But if you have never actually used a web programming language or proper database, then where do you learn the proper ways of doing something? There's only so much examples of code can teach you; they don't necessarily teach you concepts. That's what this book did for me.

Why PHP?

I really wonder, why is PHP a language of choice for interacting with databases and writing HTML. I mean, it's not a bad language by itself, a bit like Perl, maybe slightly clearer (though personally I prefer Perl), maybe not as easy in common use... But it has one TERRIBLE drawback:

Quotes and brackets.

Nothing evil by themselves, they are unfortunately just the same kind as used in HTML and SQL, which makes creating SQL queries on the fly, printing HTML piece by piece and a lot of similar work worst mess I've ever seen. I've been successful at creating Perl regexp patterns that needs a minute to be understood, but I've never before been tempted to try to optimise fragments of my program to anything like:
$a.='('.$_POST["it$f['n1'][$i]"]."='${q2}') ;";

Is there any good CGI language that doesn't have this kind of problems?

Online Documentation?

I'm sure the book is great, but what I like about PHP and MySQL (PHP mainly) are the user comments underneath each page. Sometimes the tips and tricks in these comments are life-saving. You just can't get that sort of value out of one book.

MySQL

MySQL is a great database and we currently use it in production for our servers. It has provided some very impressive performance results.

Enough!

Aren't there enough PHP/MySQL books out there? More to the point, aren't there enough clueless fuckwits out there using PHP and MySQL to retardedly kludge together unsecure, inefficient, shoddy websites, undercutting the pros with their stupid prices and generally carving up the IT job market further than it already is with their general fuckwittery?

This is one of the problems with the job market right now. Too many of the idiots who got in the business during the boom are still in. I know several of them.

No, I'm not bitter... honest :P

Something in the water?

Everyone (save the Ob. MySQL/PHP flames) seems to have liked the 1st Ed of this book, and is talking about ordering this edition for their co-workers/colleagues/selves.

What am I missing? My GF was learning PHP, and she was going through the book and asking me questions when she got stuck, and during the first half (the language basics), the amount of times I had to say, 'That's a contrived example', or 'You don't do that in real code', or 'That's just an error in the book, it doesn't even parse properly', is un-funny.

With the above parsing problem, several code examples are incorrect, and also the authors use code fragments without introducing what the variables that are introduced in them are for. These variables are presumably set outside the scope of the fragment, but to what values is not made explicit.

Would it hurt to take a reasonable example, write all the code up-front, and disect it, so the user can see what input is being used to create what output?

Philip Greenspun http://philip.greenspun.com - has a section on his site called 'Internet Application Workbook'. I started Helen (the aforementioned GF) reading this, and she was put off by his tone and the lack of actual depth into languages (this book will not teach you ADP/ASP/JSP/PHP, just how to write web applications), but I think everyone should be made read this.

Perhaps Clockwork Orange style forced-reading is required.

Re:What I want to know is

yes, very good question, I would like to know the answer to this as well.

It's right there on page 34

wget http://www.ca.postgresql.org/ftpsite/pub/source/v7 .3.2/postgresql-7.3.2.tar.gz
tar xzf postgresql-7.3.2.tar.gz
cd postgresql-7.3.2 ./configure
gmake
su
gmake install
adduser postgres
mkdir /usr/local/pgsql/data
chown postgres /usr/local/pgsql/data
su - postgres /usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb -D /usr/local/pgsql/data /usr/local/pgsql/bin/postmaster -D /usr/local/pgsql/data >logfile 2>&1 & /usr/local/pgsql/bin/createdb test /usr/local/pgsql/bin/psql test

-r

Re:I AM GOING TO FAIL MY LOGIC EXAM TODAY

as evidenced by the fact that you are reading Slashdot instead of studying.

Re:PHP is a mess - try out ZOPE

While I agree that the parent is wrong, PHP's error handling is still horrid because (at least by default) it outputs to the user of the page which could expose information to a hacker/cracker type person. I much prefer errors being logged where they can be later examined and the language should emit a 500 error to the client.

And before someone says "I don't like the crappy page that gets sent on a 500 error", with Apache you can change that error to whatever page you want.

Re:Perl

Also, can one use Perl or PHP to link up to a non-SQL database such as Oracle?

Please. Get a book. Oracle was a "SQL" database as you say about 20 years before MySQL ever existed. MySQL isn't even a "real" database, in the technical meaning of the word.

Re:Perl

The company wants me to create a dynamic site (for internal use only) to track projects and bug reports, so I've been researching dynamic Web technologies for the past several weeks.

If your time has any value, buy an off-the-shelf product like Joel Spolsky's FogBUGZ. Or install Bugzilla or something.

That said, your management probably

1) wants to keep you busy and doesn't consider your time an expense (at least, not until layoff time comes around)
2) is deluded into thinking they need a full-custom solution.
3) doesn't want to spend money on proprietary software.

Several weeks indeed!

Perl vs PHP question

This specific project aside, I have a similar question. Could somebody outline in like three bullet points what the main pros and cons are with using PHP vs Perl for dynamic web content.

Thanks.

Tor

Re:Perl vs PHP question

mod_perl and HTML::Mason gives an impressive
framework to work with. It's not easy to install
but you'll get a nice backend por code embedding.

Reasons to choose perl:

Separation of presentation from code: perl objects and modules.

Zillions of perl modules in search.cpan.org

Perl is a more mature language with years of existence before php. It has many more features like quite better regexpes and many more.

Re:Perl vs PHP question

Perl is executable line-noise.
That kinda sums it up. If you have no problem with the somewhat bizar syntax of Perl you're in. Perl is powerfull and present on allmost anything that runs even the faintest resemblence of Posix. It' ancient and so are it's homegrown semantics. If you know Unix well, take Perl. You'll feel right at home. You'll have to add AxKit, Petal (the Perl rippoff of Zope's TAL) or some other stuff to make it practically usable for larger webstuff and it will probably be slower than PHP, but therefore it's a very universal PL.

PHP on the other hand is the worlds prime dynamic web content language because it's built for, would've you guessed?: dynamic web content.
It's a subset of the large families of SSI-technologies (server-side include) like ASP (don't!), JSP (ok if you're running java), ColdFusion (don't!) and the likes. It's fast, has a bazillion readymade free products ready and beats the living crap out of Perl when it comes to developing dynamic web content. PHP projects make up the lions share of anything serious on the web. You don't need to set up Petal or AxKit/XML or whatnot to get a descent template-engine (as you'd have to with perl) but therefor it gets unpratical when you want to use it for something else then dynamic web stuff. Allthough there's a PHP-GTK lib available that let's you make 'real' apps too.

If you're mainly into dynamic web stuff take PHP. If you emphasise on Unix/Linux admining and scripting take Perl.
And take a look at Python and Zope beforehand - those are *my* favourites.

Re:PHP is a mess - try out ZOPE

If there are errors in your script PHP will just continue to run the script. If you are lucky you see a warning. If there is an error in a INSERT or UPDATE MySQL query it will just insert a similiar value. E.g. if you try to insert "45JF" in an integer column MySQL will insert "45" and won't give an Error.

You're a dumb ass. You can set the error handling in PHP quite easily and if you're stupid enough to not check your input before you do an insert then you deserve what you get.