PHP 8 solutions : dynamic web design and development made easy / David Powers.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Powers, David, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

PHP (Computer program language).

Web sites--Design.

Web sites.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (571 pages)

Edition:

Fifth edition.

Place of Publication:

[California] : Apress, [2022]

Summary:

Make your websites more dynamic by adding a feedback form, creating a private area where members can upload images that are automatically resized, or storing all your content in a database. David Powers has updated his definitive book to incorporate the latest techniques and changes to PHP with the arrival of PHP 8. New features include named attributes, constructor property promotion, the stricter and more concise match expression, union types, and more.​ The problem is, you're not a programmer and the thought of writing code sends a chill up your spine. Or maybe you've dabbled a bit in PHP and MySQL, but you can't get past baby steps. If this describes you, then you've just found the right book. PHP powers four out of every five websites that use a server-side language. In combination with the MySQL database it's ideal for creating dynamic websites. PHP and MySQL are free, easy to use, and provided by many web hosting companies in their standard packages. This book also covers MariaDB, a seamless replacement for MySQL that has been adopted on many web servers. Unfortunately, most PHP books either expect you to be an expert already or force you to go through endless exercises of little practical value. In contrast, this book gives you real value right away through a series of practical examples that you can incorporate directly into your sites, optimizing performance and adding functionality such as file uploading, email feedback forms, image galleries, content management systems, and much more. Each solution is created with not only functionality in mind, but also visual design. But this book doesn't just provide a collection of ready-made scripts: each PHP solution builds on what's gone before, teaching you the basics of PHP and database design quickly and painlessly. You'll learn how to optimize your code using object-oriented programming (OOP) techniques. By the end of the book, you'll have the confidence to start writing your own scripts or-if you prefer to leave that task to others-to adapt existing scripts to your own requirements. Right from the start, you're shown how easy it is to protect your sites by adopting secure coding practices. What You Will Learn Design and build dynamic PHP-based web sites and applications Get started right away through practical examples that you can reuse Incorporate PHP 8 elements including named attributes, constructor property promotion, and union types.

Contents:

Intro

Table of Contents

About the Author

About the Technical Reviewer

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: What Is PHP 8?

How PHP Has Grown

How PHP Makes Pages Dynamic

Creating Pages That Think for Themselves

How Hard Is PHP to Use and Learn?

Can I Just Copy and Paste the Code?

How Safe Is PHP?

What's New in PHP 8?

What Software Do I Need to Write PHP?

What to Look for When Choosing a PHP Editor

So Let's Get On with It…

Chapter 2: Getting Ready to Work with PHP

Checking Whether Your Web Site Supports PHP

Deciding Where to Test Your Pages

What You Need for a Local Test Environment

Setting Up on Windows

Getting Windows to Display Filename Extensions

Choosing a Web Server

Installing an All-in-One Package on Windows

Setting Up on macOS

Installing MAMP

Testing and Configuring MAMP

Where to Locate Your PHP Files (Windows and Mac)

Checking Your PHP Settings

Displaying the Server Configuration with phpinfo()

Editing php.ini

What's Next?

Chapter 3: How to Write PHP Scripts

PHP: The Big Picture

Telling the Server to Process PHP

Embedding PHP in a Web Page

Storing PHP in an External File

Using Variables to Represent Changing Values

Naming Variables

Assigning Values to Variables

Ending Commands with a Semicolon

Commenting Scripts

Single-Line Comments

Multiline Comments

Using Arrays to Store Multiple Values

PHP's Built-In Superglobal Arrays

Understanding When to Use Quotes

Special Cases: True, False, and Null

Making Decisions

Making Comparisons

Using Indenting and Whitespace for Clarity

Using Loops for Repetitive Tasks

Using Functions for Preset Tasks

Displaying PHP Output

Using the Short Echo Tag

Joining Strings Together

Working with Numbers

Understanding PHP Error Messages.

Why Is My Page Blank?

PHP Quick Checklist

Chapter 4: PHP: A Quick Reference

Using PHP in an Existing Web Site

Data Types in PHP

Checking the Data Type of a Variable

Explicitly Changing a Variable's Data Type

Checking Whether a Variable Has Been Defined

Doing Calculations with PHP

Arithmetic Operators

Using the Increment and Decrement Operators

Determining the Order of Calculations

Combining Calculations and Assignment

Adding to an Existing String

All You Ever Wanted to Know About Quotes-and More

How PHP Treats Variables Inside Strings

Using Escape Sequences Inside Double Quotes

Embedding Associative Array Elements in a String

Avoiding the Need to Escape Quotes with Heredoc Syntax

Creating Arrays

Building an Indexed Array

Building an Associative Array

Creating an Empty Array

Multidimensional Arrays

Using print_r() to Inspect an Array

The Truth According to PHP

Explicit Boolean Values

Implicit Boolean ("Truthy" and "Falsy") Values

Making Decisions by Comparing Two Values

Testing More Than One Condition

Using the switch Statement for Decision Chains

Using a match Expression for Decision Chains

Using the Ternary Operator

Setting a Default Value with the Null Coalescing Operator

Executing Code Repeatedly with a Loop

Loops Using while and do . . . while

The Versatile for Loop

Looping Through Arrays and Objects with foreach

Breaking Out of a Loop

Modularizing Code with Functions

Passing Values to Functions

Setting Default Values for Arguments

Variable Scope: Functions as Black Boxes

Returning Values from Functions

Generators: A Special Type of Function That Keeps on Giving

Passing by Reference: Changing the Value of an Argument

Functions That Accept a Variable Number of Arguments.

Automatically Unpacking an Array Passed to a Function

Optionally Specifying Data Types

Specifying Multiple Data Types

Using Named Arguments

Where to Locate Custom-Built Functions

Creating Anonymous Functions

Using the Concise Anonymous Syntax of Arrow Functions

Understanding PHP Classes and Objects

Using PHP Built-In Classes

Building Custom Classes

Accessing Methods and Properties in a Class

Setting the Visibility of Class Methods, Properties, and Constants

Using Constructor Property Promotion

Declaring and Using Class Constants

Using a Namespace to Avoid Naming Conflicts

Importing a Namespaced Class

Handling Errors and Exceptions

Creating New Variables Dynamically

Now to the Solutions

Chapter 5: Lightening Your Workload with Includes

Including Code from External Files

Introducing the PHP Include Commands

Where PHP Looks for Include Files

PHP Solution 5-1: Moving the Menu and Footer to Include Files

Choosing the Right Filename Extension for Includes

PHP Solution 5-2: Testing the Security of Includes

PHP Solution 5-3: Automatically Indicating the Current Page

PHP Solution 5-4: Automating a Page's Title from Its Filename

PHP Solution 5-5: Handling Missing Variables

Creating Pages with Changing Content

PHP Solution 5-6: Automatically Updating a Copyright Notice

PHP Solution 5-7: Displaying a Random Image

PHP Solution 5-8: Adding a Caption to the Random Image

Preventing Errors with Include Files

Checking the Existence of Variables

Checking Whether a Function or Class Has Been Defined

Suppressing Error Messages on a Live Web Site

Using the Error Control Operator

Turning Off display_errors in the PHP Configuration

Turning Off display_errors in an Individual File

PHP Solution 5-9: Redirecting When an Include File Can't Be Found.

Why Can't I Use Site Root-Relative Links with PHP Includes?

Document-Relative Links

Links Relative to the Site Root

Links Inside Include Files

Choosing Where to Locate Your Include Files

Security Considerations with Includes

Adjusting Your include_path

Editing the include_path in php.ini or .user.ini

Using .htaccess to Change the include_path

Using set_include_path()

Nesting Include Files

Chapter Review

Chapter 6: Bringing Forms to Life

How PHP Gathers Information from a Form

Understanding the Difference Between post and get

Getting Form Data with PHP Superglobals

Processing and Validating User Input

Creating a Reusable Script

PHP Solution 6-1: Preventing Cross-Site Scripting in a Self-Processing Form

PHP Solution 6-2: Making Sure Required Fields Aren't Blank

Preserving User Input When a Form Is Incomplete

PHP Solution 6-3: Creating Sticky Form Fields

Filtering Out Potential Attacks

PHP Solution 6-4: Blocking Email Addresses That Contain Suspect Content

Sending Email

Using Additional Email Headers Safely

PHP Solution 6-5: Adding Headers and Automating the Reply Address

PHP Solution 6-6: Building the Message Body and Sending the Mail

Troubleshooting mail()

Handling Multiple-Choice Form Elements

PHP Solution 6-7: Handling Radio Button Groups

PHP Solution 6-8: Handling Check-Box Groups

PHP Solution 6-9: Using a Drop-Down Option Menu

PHP Solution 6-10: Handling a Multiple-Choice List

PHP Solution 6-11: Handling a Single Check Box

Chapter 7: Using PHP to Manage Files

Checking That PHP Can Open a File

Creating a Folder Outside the Server Root for Local Testing on Windows

Creating a Folder Outside the Server Root for Local Testing on macOS

Configuration Settings That Affect File Access

Reading and Writing to Files.

Reading Files in a Single Operation

PHP Solution 7-1: Getting the Contents of a Text File

Opening and Closing Files for Read/Write Operations

Reading a File with fopen()

PHP Solution 7-2: Extracting Data from a CSV File

Replacing Content with fopen()

Appending Content with fopen()

Locking a File Before Writing

Preventing Overwriting an Existing File

Combined Read/Write Operations with fopen()

Moving the Internal Pointer

Exploring the File System

Inspecting a Folder with scandir()

Inspecting the Contents of a Folder with FilesystemIterator

Restricting File Types with the RegexIterator

PHP Solution 7-3: Building a Drop-Down Menu of Files

PHP Solution 7-4: Creating a Generic File Selector

Accessing Remote Files

Consuming News and Other RSS Feeds

Using SimpleXML

PHP Solution 7-5: Consuming an RSS News Feed

Creating a Download Link

PHP Solution 7-6: Prompting a User to Download an Image

Chapter 8: Working with Arrays

Modifying Array Elements

PHP Solution 8-1: Modify Array Elements with a Loop

PHP Solution 8-2: Modify Array Elements with array_walk()

PHP Solution 8-3: Modify Array Elements with array_map()

Merging Arrays

Using the Array Union Operator

Using array_merge() and array_merge_recursive()

Merging Two Indexed Arrays into an Associative Array

Comparing Arrays

Removing Duplicate Elements

PHP Solution 8-4: Joining an Array with Commas

Sorting Arrays

PHP Solution 8-5: Custom Sorting with the Spaceship Operator

Complex Sorting with array_multisort()

PHP Solution 8-6: Sorting a Multidimensional Array with array_multisort()

PHP Solution 8-7: Finding All Permutations of an Array

Processing Array Data

PHP Solution 8-8: Building Nested Lists Automatically

PHP Solution 8-9: Extracting Data from JSON

Automatically Assigning Array Elements to Variables.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes index.

ISBN:

9781523150854

1523150858

9781484271414

1484271416

OCLC:

1283845741