I am an above-average computer user, who has been mostly living in the Windows world. Recently, my friends and I have decided to create a business -- an e-commerce business. We knew nothing about how to do that. We are all electrical engineers, and are good at programming -- but have never really been concerned with how a website operates from the developer's standpoint. I purchased this book out of the blue -- based on the ratings it had and the sheer number of pages (I know that's lame but I'm being honest).

This book has single-handedly enabled us to start our e-commerce website. I have since configured my backup machine into a linux server, and have PHP, MySQL, and Apache running on it flawlessly. I haven't even got to chapter 12 yet, and I already have the database and the online applications up and running.

The real value of this book to me is the knowledge that other books take for granted. For example, in the appendix there is a complete how-to that describes where to get the PHP, MySQL, and Apache downloads, what versions to get, and how to install (and configure them) them both in linux and Windows. This information was critical. I needed the "enter this command to do this task" kind of guidance, as opposed to the "do this task" alternative I find in other books.

In the sections regarding the PHP syntax, it makes a clear distinction between the new features of PHP5 versus PHP4, and how to use the older versions if need be. As someone who is just learning the PHP language -- this also was very valuable information.

In a little more than a week, I went from a Windows XP user, to a linux server administrator writing (and debugging) PHP/MySQL applications who is able to answer server/database/PHP questions asked by my business partners. I highly recommend this book.

I am new to PHP/MySQL. I spent a lot of time on the internet(php,mysql,apache sites)learning first how to install AMP(apache, mysql, PHP). The book does an OK job but it really does not cover troubleshooting very well. Once I got my enviornment up and running, the book was OK. Again, not for beginners. I am going to be taking a class later to help explain things a little better. I was able to get out what I needed, but I would not buy this book if I was looking to learn from scratch.

Great book. It's becoming my bible! Would recommend for the beginner and beyond.

I have bought many PHP and MYSQL books in the past, but, I can tell you that I learned most of my PHP from this book. This book gives you working examples with detailed explantion.

I do not recommend for you to buy this book right now, becuase the authors are coming up with the 3rd edition of this book. Just wait until September 29, 2004 or just preorder it.


ISBN: 0672326728

First off, I want to reply to "Michelle's" review.

You are totally wrong, first of all, when viewing code in specific text viewing clients, the line breaks may be removed, that is your fault, not the author's.

2nd, the authors explain include/require a lot throughout the book, and about how the include over and over, thats how a good application is done cleanly.

---

Great book, shows the basis of PHP/MySQL, and works its way in the advanced aspects, covering all majoy subjects such as File systems, PHP generating images, online security, SSL [HTTPS/Secure Socket layers.], online credit card processing and more.

Truely a good buy, reccomend for all.

The projects really helped me to get something tangible up and running very quickly. I already know C++, HTML and other web technologies so PHP was extremely easy to pick up. I was able to create a shopping cart within a week.

There are numerous useful examples in this book. If you ever wanted to put some dynamic content in your site, buy this book.

Some things I would have liked is a more extensive coverage of writing secure scripts. This is not a negative for this book since most books are written for a large audience and you rarely find one that doesn't waste someone's time with very basic subjects like setting up a webserver or how ecommerce works and etc.

I bought this a few months back and I found it useful getting started with PHP and MySQL. The problem, though, is that it doesn't go far enough: the material on PDF doesn't actually show you how to write a report from a database or get anything installed, there's almost nothing on advanced MySQL, and just 10 pages on OO programming. I also found the code hard to get going and a bit buggy. The 2nd edition seems to not really have moved with the pace of the area and it left me unsatisfied. In the end, I went in search of another book.

Williams and Lane's new 2nd edition of "Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL" (O'Reilly, 2004) has done it for me. It weighs in at almost 800 pages, a few hundred more than its 1st edition, and it looks like an almost complete rewrite. It covers PDF reporting in depth, installation on Windows and Mac OS X, and has chapters towards the end on PEAR, advanced MySQL, and PHP55 OO features. By the time I bought it, I guess wasn't really a newbie, but I still think it is gentle enough if you're still getting the basics (the first 200 pages or so introduce PHP and MySQL). It's a pretty awesome book, and shows again why O'Reilly are a safe bet (though perhaps it's wise to wait for the 2nd editions, judging by the bugs in the 1st edition of this one).

I reckon both books are worth the money, but if you just want one, then O'Reilly's new book is better.

This book is so cool! As a beginner in PHP I leaned a lot in this book. The price is reasonable. I wish all books are like this "by example type", like the PHP book by Julie Melonie that book also rocks!.

Overall this is a fine, if physically weighty, introduction to PHP. It will take a developer who understands web application flow reasonably well from knowing nothing about PHP to understanding how to build complex web sites.

The first 150 pages or so are on the syntax of PHP. The last 20 of those are on Object Oriented PHP (version 4), and about 10 of those are on the basics of OO programming. So I wouldn't try and learn OO PHP from this book (see Advanced PHP Programming for that.)

Section two, on database programming, starts with an introduction to the basics of database design, moves onto the mechanics of MySQL and it's interaction with PHP. It finishes with a very brief section on PEAR. This is the part that caused me to give the book only three stars. First, the database access uses string concatenation, which is error prone and insecure. Even worse, the section on PEAR, which supports the '?' operator in SQL statements, fails to mention that feature or it's advantages. Since most PHP programming is about putting a face on a database, teaching how to do databases the right way is extremely important. For a lesson in how to do database access in PHP right see another SAMS PHP book; Advanced PHP Programming.

Up to chapter twenty-four the book progresses by talking about each technology (e.g. authentication, date manipulation, regular expressions, etc.) as a sort of stove pipe. The chapters are generally short, and are well written and consistent. Graphics are used sparingly, which is appreciated.

With chapter twenty-four and beyond the author presents common tasks (e.g. login pages, shopping carts, etc.) with example applications. This is an effective technique as most of these problems involve bringing together several PHP technologies and understanding how to use them as a whole.

Overall I liked this book. I did take exception to the SQL problems in section two and I marked my review down because database access is so important to PHP web development. WIth the caveat that the reader should look elsewhere for advice on proper PHP database development I would recommend this book to anyone with some web experience who wants to develop dynamic sites with PHP.

This book has a bunch of code and little explanation. I don't understand how this can actually be published. The authors didn't take the time to even explain half of it, just dumped code and left us wondering.

I purchased this book in '03 hoping to get a complete over of MySQL as an addition to the already familiar PHP. I was hoping to see a lot of focus on MySQL and what I could do to fully understand it's integration. What I got wasn't exactly what I was hoping for...

This book focuses on PHP alone and MySQL alone, leaving the integration for it's projects starting about half way through the book. I was dissapointed also on the length of MySQL query language. The section skimmed over MANY of the operators, only explaining about 1/3 of them, and leaving the other 2/3 to learn from months of trial and error. I was thoroughly dissapointed that they even kept things such as joining tables to perhaps 1 sample query and a 2 paragraphs at most. I was hoping to see beyond "SELECT * from table WHERE ID > 5 ORDER by title DESC", but that is about as far as most of this book will take you...

I also found that the coding techniques used are a bit too "orthodox" and not very present day. I say this because they use far too many lines/functions than needed. I've probably learned more from re-writing their code to my style than reading their code in general.

There are only about 1 or 2 coding mistakes (which I've found, however I guess that was a learning experience) that plague this book, so I have to definitely say the integrity is excellent.

If you are looking to start PHP and MySQL I'd reccomend this as a reference book, keep the core learning seperate. I'd reccomend the PHP Bible (which touches on MySQL integration nearly as much as this does..), but I have not yet found THE MySQL book. I'd reccomend the MySQL Bible but it goes far beyond PHP and not into queries as much as it could...

In summary: Learning book? Eh.. Reference book? Sound's more like it..

A job well done by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson! I purchased this job after going through Amazon User Reviews. I had some knowledge in Perl-CGI and worked on ODBC connectivity to databases. I just wanted to get started with PHP and since this book addressed the added issue of database connectivity (in this case MySQL), I thought of giving it a try.

Some of the best features of this book include:
* Manual Installation of the PHP Engine, installation of MySQL Engine on Windows Platform. It also deals with UNIX platform.
* Crispy introduction to setting up database, tables in MySQL.
* All you need to know about Sessions, Shopping Cart etc.

The authors also try to discuss the newer functions in the current versions of PHP(at the time of writing the book) and point out the deprecated functions at right places in the book.

If you have some knowledge of Server side Scripting and how the Server folder setup is.. then definitely go for this book.

Hats Off to the authors on such a wonderful effort. No where in the book i feel the authors digress from the subject. All the subjects handled, are of definite practical interest.

Thank you.

The book starts off in a hurried description of the PHP syntax and automatically dives the reader into a project. The first project, obviously is creating your first PHP program.

The source code in the book is functional, with no errors (at least from what I've encountered). The few issues I have thus far are in the later chapters of the book. For the experienced developer, some of the material in the text is verbose and verbatim, it repeats things that are common to developers (security and whatnot), but it's perfect for the beginner. The book goes onto cover basic authentication in Chapter 14, and then details it in a much later chapter. The things I love about the book is that it covers PHP sessions, working with the file system directly (Windows AND UNIX), FTP uploads, and it even shows you how to make your own WebMail page using PHP.

MySQL is aptly covered, the book does not go into detail with SQL, it covers the basic commands such as create database, use database, create table, insert commands, and some basic authentication stuff. It even has a small Apache tutorial in the Appendix.

It's a good book for the beginner, I bought it because I like the format of the book and the examples.

Oh, this book seems to have so much going for it. At first, I was going to say that this was one of the most comprehensible computer books I've read in a long time (why, oh why can't computer people write in a manner that is clearly understood to their readers?) - the authors seem to have the rare knack of explaining things clearly. Then; however, I discovered that there are errors in the book and the examples in the book DO NOT match those on the CD. The book also isn't clear on what needs to be entered, precisely, in order for the examples to match those on the CD. I finally ended up comparing the two in order to make sense of things - this wasted a LOT of my time. Fortunately, my background is such that, so far, I've been able to figure things out.

When the problems started, I looked for an errata sheet - both on the publisher's site (Sam's Publishing) and on the site provided in the book (...). Nothing on Sam's, at all, and the other site is nothing more than an advertisement for the book. Ugh!

This book had so much promise - had a better job been done with editing, it could have easily earned FIVE STARS.

At this point, I'm still able to figure things out and, compared to all of the other books I've tried, so far, on PHP and MySQL, this one still makes some sense. Oh well...

This has got to be one of the best computer programming books out there, period.
It is chock full of very practical, straightforward information, techniques, and examples you can use today. And it's pretty easy to read, with simple and concise explanations of code examples.
There are some examples the just don't work as written, too (at least on my Windows/IIS machine). HOWEVER, I found these 'bad' examples relatively easy to fix - I know the MySQL and PHP sites pretty well now ;-)...and I learned even more than just the content within the book. Far more!
Anyone with an intermediate knowledge of computers/programming and wanting to learn PHP/MySQL *quickly* will definitely find this book a real keeper.

I highly recommended this book to anyone who wants to build web sites. I went through every chapter with ease. The examples are well documented and explained. For the developer who needs the details, I used RedHat9 Pro and did not have to update anything to run the examples.The Integrated Development Environment I used for the examples in this book incorporated a Linux Server with RedHat9, an internal NT4.0 network and a Windows NT4.0 workstation.I was able to develop custom dynamic web pages much easier with PHP than with the WYSIWYG editor. This book is structured for teaching the development dynamics of any size web site from the small business to the large corporate site that use or require many writers contributing to the sites development. The examples in this book also may be customized to fit almost any website needs and is a great template for future development. New to PHP and MySQL ?; Then the first few chapters will get you up to speed quickly.

Recently, I had to extend a popular PHP-based application, so I embarked on a quest to learn PHP as fast as I could to become productive. While there are plenty of easy to follow tutorials on the Net, as well as an extremely high-quality PHP manual, I decided to go the book route. After browsing the bookshelf with dozens of PHP books (ranging from such reputable houses as Prentice Hall and Addison-Wesley down to the toxic waste of "for dummies, complete idiots in 24 hours" series), I ended up with the book above. It seemed to provide a coverage broad enough without subjecting me to the slow torture of starting up from the very basics.

There is a lot to like about this book:
- It covers both core PHP as well as a nice set of add-on modules. After you have read the book, you will hardly need anything beyond the PHP library reference to start producing full-featured apps (no, the book will not turn you into great programmer).
- Unlike a lot of books in this fast-paced world, it is not a book on PHP 3 that was hastily re-branded for PHP 4 by adding a bunch of footnotes describing changes. This is a book about PHP 4 and it describes and uses PHP 4 features.
- The example projects are realistic enough in size and usefullness yet not overwhelming. I liked a lot the discussion on website roll-out and maintenance - something most of the books on web programming omit. This section will beinvaluable for those who start using PHP for home projects.

As usual, the book is not perfect. There is not much to complain and the issues are not too bad (other books are worse).
- There is very little space devoted to serious issues like PHP and MySQL security - about 3 pages all in all. MySQL optimization and performance analysis get same treatment. Yes, both subjects are quite broad and each of them requires a book on its own. Still, providing checklists and useful tips on both subjects would help raising awareness of the issues, especially for people who don't have any background in web server or database configuration.
- While the book has a lot of information on authentication, it is still unclear after reading it, how one would use basic authentication from PHP. The only half-page example is far from obvious and ther is not much commentary on it.
- When checking for existance of a presumably unique record in a database, authors consistently check whether the number of rows returned is bigger than zero. This is not what I call defensive programming - if they expect the record to be unique, they should check that it is unique indeed.

These tiny issues notwithstanding, I consider it the best "not for Dummies" book on the subject. Not only that, this book immediately fell into the category of the books that I keep, so it now proudly stands on my shelf. Great job, Luke and Laura!

The title is PHP and MySQL Web Development, but while it covers these subject in satisfying depth, it touches on many adjacent subjects such as security (transmission, storage, theory), and E-Commerce (theory and how to impliment using PHP/MySQL). It is very well laid out, making it easy to find what you're looking for. You can pick up anywhere in the book and be able to understand without having read previous chapters.

I agree with quite a number of reviews that i have read here.
For me, I give this book a 3 stars rating.

i) It kick off well enough if you have fundamentals in programming and html.

ii) Onwards, it talks about MySQL database and other web security issues..... great explanations without doubts.

iii) And the best thing about this book is after everything, it includes a project sections whereby a lot of interesting web
applications are introduced.
There are also recommendation on how to extend the project further and the authors also intro to you an existing open
source application of that web app type.

I would say this is marvelous not many programming books out there actually have so many different features.
2 thumbs up for these effort.

However, what i dislike about the book is also in the project section. Why did i say that?
First of all, the style of explaning the coding is already in the wrong direction.
Take for example, the authors like to include common functions from other files.
This is a good practice but should be used sparingly.
But what frustrated me most is that instead of explaining page by page, the authors chooose to explained them function by function.
Now, these functions are all over those included files.
You have to jump here and there from files to files to find those functions.
Worst still, in the book there is no printed page of those included files.
The authors assume you will go and search for them in the CD itself.

So, you now know how hard it is to actually search and learned at the same time whats going on in the project.

*ONE IMPORTANT THING*
To address someone's mentioned problem on the shopping cart example....
I see that you can't get any categories to display after querying the database.
Possible reason for the cause might be... you haven't change the password connecting to your mysql database.

Here's the solution:
1) In db_fns.php, there's a db_connect() function

2) Look for this line:
$result = @mysql_pconnect("localhost", "book_sc", "password");

3) Now, remembered in the earlier page of this chapt. the author mentioned that you should changed the mysql database password for this user.

4) Go ahead and edit that line by changing the password String to the password you set earlier for the user.

5) Now, your php script should display the categories.

The reason why this happens is because the authors never bother or forgot to explain this function in the book
and remind you to change the password again.
(remember they are skipping all over the functions)

Overall, this is a good book for beginner to intermediate if you do not mind debugging the codes and the typos.
However, do not expect great aftersales support from the publisher and authors.

BTW, the errata for 1st edition is at http://www.tangledweb.com/errata.php
and its not really updated if you asked me.

This is a great starter for PHP and MySQL and also serves as a good reference. I asked many experts which one book they would recommend. This one was on almost everyone's list. Of course, I got it and a half-dozen others. I agree that this is the best of the lot. It is not a for-dummies book, but someone with programming experience and HTML experience should find it easy to start with. I ended up using two bookmarks, one for PHP and one for MySQL, when first starting at different chapters. They merged quickly after that as I learned the two. Very handy.

I actaully really like this book. It is easy to read and gives some pretty good coding examples. There are also so many coding errors that you dive right in and start learning how to debug code. I like learning this way. I am almost done reading it and have run into a roadblock. There is a section of code in the book that does not work (well this section in particular - there are tons of code examples that don't work) and I cannot figure out why. Great - no problem - I will just go take a look-see at the errata and that should get me going again. NOT. There is no errata. What the blueberries is up with that!

Another thing that irked me about this book is the fact that the writer did not bother to tell you everything you should compile into PHP in the appendix. Instead you set it up as per the appendix and start reading. Then find out you need to reconfigure to add support for something. Reconfigure, recompile, retest - ok start reading again. Doh! Have to reconfigure again to add support for something else. Blah Blah - this happens about 4-5 times. Great.

Arggggg - OK - I have a headache from reading this book. I would not recommend it unless they come up with an errata or a third edition with fixed code and the correct install instructions for PHP.

Enjoy!

I've learned several other programming languages from books before, but none have made it this easy. A good basic introduction is followed by a pretty steep learning curve toward more advanced applications. Good at teaching how to extrapolate what you've learned. The only thing missing is a reference section, but you don't even really need it with all the information available on php.net.

The biggest reason that I would suggest that you NOT buy this book is that there is no errata, no support and no response from any of the authors or publishers when you try to contact them about a question. I don't know about you but I find it frustrating when I have a question about a book that I am working through and there is absolutely no where to go. Every other programming manual I have used has had an errata page and most will either have a forum or someone will respond to your emails if you send in a question. This book has none of those. I have not tried the other books that other people have recommended in addition to or instead of this book, but I suggest that you check those out first before you buy this book.

The URL for obtaining the errata provided in the book... is inoperative. SAMS Publishing web site provides no help either. (In fact, the website's search capability is also broken.) So there you have it. A book frought with errors has a faulty errata link. All that irony for a list price...

I found this book to be worth its weight in gold. There are some code errors such as list 1.3 on page 47, however this does not detract from the overall quality of the book. This book assumes that you understand html and if you don't you would not realize that the missing tag and improper use of double quotes (improperly escaped) would result in the error. While an error free book would be nice, I realize that errors do happen. It would be nice if SAMS would have a place on their site for submitting spotted typos for an online errata (at least this wasn't obvious when browsing their site).
As a professional developer, I found that the book offers good advice for the beginner, explains best practices very well, and takes you to the next level. The first 11 chapters may be redundant for some, and may progress too quickly for less experienced coders, however, I feel that the book covers it's bases well.
On a positive note (concerning coding errors), if you get the code to work then you have really accomplished two tasks. Learning PHP and debugging :-) Five stars minus one star for those pesky 6 legged critters that keep popping up! Anyone with previous programming experience won't have any trouble coping with the bugs.

This book could SO EASILY have walked away with five stars. After all, it's probably the only book out there that talks about online credit card processing in detail. That's a pretty powerful claim to fame!

I've had the book for a few days now and I was looking forward to giving it quite a high mark and a general thumbs up all round.

But unfortunately I've just discovered something which (in my mind) ABSOLUTELY *ruins* this entire book. The trouble is this...

When you're writing PHP scripts you can (as I'm sure many of you are aware) use "include" files to save you from re-writing certain sections over and over again. But the trouble with this book is that the programming style goes WAY overboard with the include files.

For example, in the online shopping cart program that's discussed, if you look at the book, then the script looks fairly short and refreshingly simple. "Great!"- I hear you say. *BUT* if you look closely you'll notice that the program has a line which basically says "include such and such a file".

Ok, so now you have to cross reference two separate scripts. That's a bit of a pain, but you're probably still not too bothered and eager to carry on with the book. *BUT* dig this! When you go to that include file, it's filed with lots and lots of other include files!!!!!!!

To make things even worse, the include files that you get on the CD are just massive horizontal blobs of text. The authors didn't even bother to hit return at the end of each line!!! HOW LAZY IS THAT??????!!!!

And by the way... everything that I've described so far is just for one tiny part of the shopping cart program (the "display item" page). If you were seriously thinking of building the entire online shopping cart program from scratch then you can conseravitely multiply the above process by 20 or 30!

It's just a mass of confusion!

Oh, and don't think you'll be able to figure out what's going on from the book- the book doesn't even discuss most of the include files!

So, all of this means that if you *really* wanted to work out how to build an online shop from this book, then you'd have to spend literally weeks (perhaps even months!) untangling the massive ball of string that is all the include files. What a terrible way to write a book about programming!

This reason alone renders this book useless. Not poor. Not badly written. USELESS! I'd even go so far as to say it's almost as though the authors are really paranoid about the idea of other people actually learning how to build professional PHP applications!

This book SHOULD have been a four or a five. A face value it has everything going for it. But the bottom line is, if you want to learn how to build PHP applications, it'll do nothing but slow you down.

There are many other great PHP books here on Amazon.

I advise you to forget this particular book and move on.

This is a good book to get you started on writing your own aps. I wouldn't recommend for the absolute beginner, but it is great if you have some knowledge of programming and/or PHP.

This book has many codes which simply do not work. For an example, the Listing 1.3 on page 47 does not work. I cannot understand why this book has gotten such a high rating, which made me to buy this book. I wish I did not leave my handwritings so that I may be able to get a refund. Before you decided to buy this book, please go to a local bookstore with a laptop and try the Listing 1.3 on page 47 and others. Hope I did not look too mean by giving my frank feedback of this book.

This book has many codes which simply do not work. For an example, the Listing 1.3 on page 47 does not work. I cannot understand why this book has gotten such a high rating, which made me to buy this book. I wish I did not leave my handwritings so that I may be able to get a refund. Before you decided to buy this book, please go to a local bookstore with a laptop and try the Listing 1.3 on page 47 and others. Hope I did not look too mean by giving my frank feedback of this book.

Good book for beginners. Okay book fom intermediates. Why? Good explanations and examples, well thought out progression of chapters... BUT its index is pretty weak and really hampers the books use as a desk reference. Extremely frustrating book to use when trying to find out certain specifics. I'm picking up a PHP Desk Reference to supplement this book.

I would not recommend this book. It is certainly NOT for a beginning programmer. It assumes C programming knowledge which surprised me while reading. I found the book useful but if you are a beginner at programming find another book. Most of the examples also failed to function correctly but their content could get you going on the right steps.

I have already developed some simple sites using PHP and MySQL after reading SAMS "Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache". However now I want to get things really going and found this book spot on.

It gives a quick and clear intro to the foundations then leaps into some great code with lots of useful practical examples. The text is clear and very easy to follow especially of you who have had any programming experience before.

After having a look at the other books around I would recommend this to people who want to move up a rung on their skill ladder or to beginners with some programming experience in C, VB or Java wishing to get into PHP.

I have already developed some simple sites using PHP and MySQL after reading SAMS "Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache". However now I want to get things really going and found this book spot on.

It gives a quick and clear intro to the foundations then leaps into some great code with lots of useful practical examples. The text is clear and very easy to follow especially of you who have had any programming experience before.

After having a look at the other books around I would recommend this to people who want to move up a rung on their skill ladder or to beginners with some programming experience in C, VB or Java wishing to get into PHP.

Now in a new and expanded second edition, PHP And MySQL Web Development by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson, teaches the aspiring webmaster to develop dynamic, secure, commercial Web sites. Using the same accessible, popular teaching style of the first edition, PHP And MySQL Web Development has been updated to reflect the rapidly changing landscape of MySQL and PHP. PHP And MySQL Web Development teaches the user to integrate and implement these technologies by following real-world examples and working sample projects, and also covers related technologies needed to build a commercial Web site, such as SSL, shopping carts, and payment systems. The updated second edition includes new coverage of how to work with XML in developing a PHP and MySQL site, and how to draw on the valuable resources of the PEAR repository of code and extensions. Highly recommended.

This is a wonderful book if you want to get up and running with PHP (and MySQL) quickly. They authors overview PHP and SQL quite efficiently and let their examples and realistic scenarios do the talking. Keep in mind that if you are interested in really mastering PHP you will certainly want to pick a more complete documentation of the language but this edition gives you a strong foundation. I loved it.