[...]... using PHP and MySQL How This Book Is Organized We have organized the book into five parts Part I: Working with MySQL Before you code any PHP scripts you need to know how to design a database, create tables in your database, and get the information you want from the database Part I of this book shows you just about everything you need to know to work with MySQL ix x Preface Part II: Working with PHP As... techniques for writing clean, manageable code Part III: Simple Applications In this part we present two of the nine applications in this book: a guestbook and a survey Here you see the lessons from Parts I and II put into practice as we build working applications Part IV: Not So Simple Applications Here the applications become more complex, as we present applications commonly used on the Web You see how you... you might still use applications that are in no way dependent on the client In other words, applications in which all the work is done on the central computer The client In this book, you’ll learn how to use MySQL and PHP to create applications that make use of a single client: the Web browser This is not the only possibility for Internet-based applications For very sophisticated applications that require... ix x Preface Part II: Working with PHP As an applications developer, you will spend the bulk of your time writing scripts that access the database and present HTML to a user’s browser Part II starts by showing you the basics of the PHP scripting language, covering how PHP works with variables, conditions, and control structures Part II also covers many of PHP s functions and discusses techniques for... won’t need to fool with it a whole lot But as you are developing your applications, you spend a lot of time writing code that makes your applications work In addition to PHP, several languages perform similar functions Some of the more popular choices are ASP, Perl, and ColdFusion xxix xxx Introduction RELATIONAL DATABASES Relational database management systems (RDBMSes) provide a great way to store and... through these pages, you’re probably considering writing Web-based applications with PHP and MySQL If you decide to go with these tools, you’ll be in excellent company Thousands of developers — from total newbies to programmers with years of experience — are turning to PHP and MySQL for their Web-based projects, and for good reason Both PHP and MySQL are easy to use, fast, free, and powerful If you want... the Web server and the database server; it is also used to perform programmatic tasks on the information that comes to and from the Web server Figure I-1 represents this system Introduction Relational Database (MySQL, Oracle, MS SQL) Middleware Web Server PHP, ColdFusion ASP, JSP (Apache, IIS) Internet Web Browser (Internet Explore Netscape) Figure I-1: Architecture of Web applications But, of course,... talking about, here are the basics PHP and MySQL belong to a class of software known as open source This means that the source code for the heart of the applications is available to anyone who wants to see it These applications make use of an open-source development model, which enables anyone who is interested to participate in the development of the project In the case of PHP, coders all over the world... discussion board, a shopping cart, and other useful applications Along the way we show you some tips and techniques that should be helpful as you write your applications Part V: Appendixes The appendixes cover several topics of interest to the MySQL /PHP developer In them you can find installation and configuration instructions, quick reference guides to PHP and MySQL functions, a regular expressions overview,... offers you the best opportunity to develop powerful Web applications quickly That generalization made, we do believe there are other excellent reasons for choosing PHP IT’S CROSS-PLATFORM In the rundown of Web architecture, we mentioned that PHP runs on Windows 2000/NT/CE/XP and Unix and with both IIS and Apache But the cross-platform abilities of PHP go far beyond these platforms If you happen to be