PHP for Absolute Beginners 2009

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 YELLOW   BLACK

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Dear Reader, PHP for Absolute Beginners will take you from zero to full-speed with PHP programming in an easy-to-understand, practical manner. Rather than building applications with no real-world use, this book teaches you PHP by walking you through the development of a blogging web site. You’ll start by creating a simple web-ready blog, then you'll learn how to add password-protected controls, support for multiple pages, the ability to upload and resize images, a user comment system, and finally, how to integrate with sites like Twitter. Along the way, you'll also learn a few advanced tricks including creating friendly URLs with .htaccess, using regular expressions, object-oriented programming, and more. I wrote this book to help you make the leap to PHP developer in hopes that you can put your valuable skills to work for your company, your clients, or on your own personal blog. The concepts in this book will leave you ready to take on the challenges of the new online world, all while having fun! Jason Lengstorf

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Companion eBook

PHP for Absolute Beginners

PHP Objects, Patterns, and Practice

Beginning PHP and MySQL

Practical Web 2.0 Applications with PHP

Pro PHP: Patterns, Frameworks, Testing, and More

Beginning Ajax and PHP

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Companion eBook Available

PHP for Absolute Beginners

PHP for Absolute Beginners

The Expert’s Voice® in Open Source

PHP

for Absolute Beginners Everything you need to know to get started with PHP

Jason Lengstorf

Shelve in: PHP User level: Beginner

  

this print for content only—size & color not accurate

trim = 7.5" x 9.25"  spine = 0.75"  408 page count

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PHP for Absolute Beginners

■■■ Jason Lengstorf

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PHP for Absolute Beginners Copyright © 2009 by Jason Lengstorf All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4302-2473-0 ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4302-2474-7 Printed and bound in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Lead Editor: Michelle Lowman Technical Reviewer: Gordon Forsythe Editorial Board: Clay Andres, Steve Anglin, Mark Beckner, Ewan Buckingham, Tony Campbell, Gary Cornell, Jonathan Gennick, Michelle Lowman, Matthew Moodie, Jeffrey Pepper, Frank Pohlmann, Ben Renow-Clarke, Dominic Shakeshaft, Matt Wade, Tom Welsh Project Manager: Debra Kelly Copy Editor: Patrick Meader Compositor: Lynn L’Heureux Indexer: John Collin Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 233 Spring Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10013. Phone 1-800-SPRINGER, fax 201-348-4505, e-mail [email protected], or visit http://www.springeronline.com. For information on translations, please e-mail [email protected], or visit http://www.apress.com. Apress and friends of ED books may be purchased in bulk for academic, corporate, or promotional use. eBook versions and licenses are also available for most titles. For more information, reference our Special Bulk Sales–eBook Licensing web page at http://www.apress.com/info/bulksales. The information in this book is distributed on an “as is” basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author(s) nor Apress shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this work. The source code for this book is available to readers at http://www.apress.com. You will need to answer questions pertaining to this book in order to successfully download the code.

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For my dad, who showed me that nothing stands between a bear and its honey.

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Contents at a Glance ■About the Author ....................................................................................................... xiv ■About the Technical Reviewer.................................................................................... xv ■Acknowledgments..................................................................................................... xvi ■Introduction.............................................................................................................. xvii ■Chapter 1: Setting Up the PHP Development Environment...........................................3 ■Chapter 2: Understanding PHP: Language Basics ......................................................29 ■Chapter 3: Passing Information with PHP..................................................................69 ■Chapter 4: Working with Databases...........................................................................97 ■Chapter 5: Building the Entry Manager ....................................................................125 ■Chapter 6: Adding Support for Multiple Pages.........................................................157 ■Chapter 7: Updating and Deleting Entries ................................................................187 ■Chapter 8: Adding the Ability to Upload Images ......................................................207 ■Chapter 9: Syndicating the Blog...............................................................................263 ■Chapter 10: Adding a Commenting System to Your Blog ........................................283 ■Chapter 11: Adding Password Protection to Administrative Links ..........................311 ■Chapter 12: Finishing Touches.................................................................................341 ■Index .......................................................................................................................369

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Contents ■About the Author ....................................................................................................... xiv ■About the Technical Reviewer.................................................................................... xv ■Acknowledgments..................................................................................................... xvi ■Introduction.............................................................................................................. xvii ■Chapter 1: Setting Up the PHP Development Environment...........................................3 Why You Need Apache, MySQL, and PHP................................................................................3 Drilling Down on PHP........................................................................................................3 Stable/Production vs. Development Releases ............................................................4 How PHP Works ..........................................................................................................4 Server-Side vs. Client-Side Scripting .........................................................................4 What Apache Does......................................................................................................5 Store Info with MySQL ......................................................................................................5 Installing PHP, Apache, and MySQL (the Hard Way)................................................................6 Installation Made Easy......................................................................................................6 Installing XAMPP...............................................................................................................6 Step 1: Download XAMPP ...........................................................................................7 Step 2: Open the Installer and Follow the Instructions...............................................7 Step 3: Test XAMPP to Ensure Proper Installation ....................................................11 Choosing a Development Kit .................................................................................................15 Benefiting from SDKs and IDEs.......................................................................................15 Choosing the Right SDK..................................................................................................18 The Eclipse Foundation and PDT ..............................................................................18 Installing and Using the Eclipse PDT .....................................................................................18 Step 1: Downloading the PDT .........................................................................................19 Step 2: Unpacking the PDT Archive ................................................................................19 Step 3: Choosing Your Project Workspace .....................................................................20 Step 4: Creating Your First Project .................................................................................23

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■ CONTENTS

Step 5: Creating a File ....................................................................................................26 Step 6: Writing Your First Script .....................................................................................27 Summary...............................................................................................................................28 ■Chapter 2: Understanding PHP: Language Basics ......................................................29 Embedding PHP Scripts.........................................................................................................29 Alternative Delimiters .....................................................................................................30 Short Tags ................................................................................................................31 HTML Another option provided to Front Page users was Microsoft’s ASP-style delimiters: <% echo 'This is some text'; %>


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