Specifications

PHP AND MYSQL WEB DEVELOPMENT

Using a language such as PHP and a database such as MySQL allows you to make your sites

dynamic: to have them be customizable and contain real-time information.

We have deliberately focused this book on real-world applications, even in the introductory chap-

ters. We’ll begin by looking at a simple online ordering system, and work our way through the

various parts of PHP and MySQL.

We will then discuss aspects of electronic commerce and security as they relate to building a real-

world Web site, and show you how to implement these aspects in PHP and MySQL.

In the final section of this book, we will talk about how to approach real-world projects, and take

you through the design, planning, and building of the following seven projects:

• User authentication and personalization

• Shopping carts

• Content management systems

• Web-based email

• Mailing list managers

• Web forums

• Document generation

Any of these projects should be usable as is, or can be modified to suit your needs. We chose them

because we believe they represent seven of the most common Web-based applications built by

programmers. If your needs are different, this book should help you along the way to achieving

your goals.

What Is PHP?

PHP is a server-side scripting language designed specifically for the Web. Within an HTML page,

you can embed PHP code that will be executed each time the page is visited. Your PHP code is

interpreted at the Web server and generates HTML or other output that the visitor will see.

PHP was conceived in 1994 and was originally the work of one man, Rasmus Lerdorf. It was

adopted by other talented people and has gone through three major rewrites to bring us the broad,

mature product we see today. As of January 2001, it was in use on nearly five million domains

worldwide, and this number is growing rapidly. You can see the current number at

http://www.

php.net/usage.php

PHP is an Open Source product. You have access to the source code. You can use it, alter it, and

redistribute it all without charge.

PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page, but was changed in line with the GNU recursive

naming convention (GNU = Gnu’s Not Unix) and now stands for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor.

The current major version of PHP is 4. This version has seen some major improvements to the

language, discussed in the next section.

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